'Inglourious Basterds' wins SAG film award

LOS ANGELES – While Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock's chances for Academy Award gold were advanced with their trophies at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the blockbuster "Avatar" may have felt a touch blue.

The computer-assisted performances in James Cameron's "Avatar" didn't make the cut for SAG nominations. But the groundbreaking sci-fi film remains a strong best-picture contender for the Oscars in March.

For Bridges of "Crazy Heart," Bullock of "The Blind Side" and for SAG supporting-acting honorees Mo'Nique of "Precious" and Christoph Walt of "Inglourious Basterds," there's reason to suspect the Oscar ceremony will be a happy rerun of Saturday's SAG Awards and last Sunday's Golden Globes.

All four were recognized at the Globes, as well, while "Avatar" was named best drama and Cameron won as best director.

He will face competition from director Quentin Tarantino, whose "Inglourious Basterds" won the SAG Award for best ensemble performance, which can be a precursor to the top Oscar award. Last year, SAG's movie cast award was presented to "Slumdog Millionaire," which went on to win the best picture Oscar.

"It was an honor to be part of it, Quentin," "Inglourious Basterds" cast member Eli Roth said in accepting the award for his fellow actors in the off-kilter World War II revenge saga.

Bullock declined — strenuously — to look ahead.

"Shhhhh. Shhhhh. Shhhhh," Bullock said backstage when she was asked to speculate on her Oscar chances. She won for her portrayal of a tenacious real-life mom, Leigh Anne Tuohy, who helped a youth in need, future NFL player Michael Oher.

"I would be a hostess or a waitress or a house restorer before I ever considered myself an actor, because I never thought I was good enough," she added.

Although respected by his peers, Bridges has largely been bypassed for major awards.

"I love being an actor — pretending to be other people and getting into the shoes of other folks," said Bridges, who plays a hard-luck, hard-living country singer in "Crazy Heart."

Waltz was honored for his role as an enthusiastically ruthless Nazi. Mo'Nique's trophy came for her searing portrayal of an abusive mother in "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' By Sapphire."

On the TV side of the SAG Awards, the cast of AMC's 1960s Madison Avenue saga "Mad Men" won the trophy for best drama series ensemble for the second year in a row, while 19 cast members of Fox TV newcomer "Glee," about misfits in a high school singing club, accepted the award for best comedy series ensemble.

"Glee" claimed the best comedy series award at the Golden Globes.

Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey of NBC's "30 Rock" won for best acting in a comedy series, allowing Fey to get in a sly joke about NBC and its bitter late-night battle with Conan O'Brien in her acceptance speech.

"I just wanted to take a moment to say to everyone at NBC, we are very happy with everything, and happy to be there," she said. Both she and Baldwin won the awards last year.

Golden Globe winner Michael C. Hall of Showtime's "Dexter," wearing a cap because of treatment he's receiving for Hodgkin's lymphoma, won best actor in a drama series. The award for best actress in a drama went to Julianna Margulies of CBS' "The Good Wife."

Kevin Bacon won as best actor in a movie or miniseries for the war-themed drama, "Taking Chance," while Drew Barrymore received best actress honors in the category for "Grey Gardens," about eccentric relatives of Jacqueline Onassis.

Betty White, 88, accepted a lifetime achievement award from Bull+ock for an enduring career that included "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "The Golden Girls," and showed her sharp comedic chops.

When Bullock joked that she finds White annoying, White shot back, "Isn't it heartening to see how far a girl as plain as she is can go."

"I should be presenting an award to you for the privilege of working in this wonderful business all this time. And you still can't get rid of me," White told the audience.

Actors in two highly critically acclaimed films went home empty-handed, including "Up in the Air" star George Clooney and the film's supporting actresses, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick. The cast of "The Hurt Locker" also lost out.

Clooney, however, was lauded by SAG President Ken Howard for helping organize Friday's telethon to raise money for earthquake-devastated Haiti, a rare reference to the tragedy.

Two honors not shown in the telecast went to stunt ensembles for the film "Star Trek" and the TV show "24."

Zombie master Romero's film targets discrimination

VENICE (Reuters) – Zombie master George A. Romero had no particular conflict in mind when making "Survival of the Dead," the sixth installment in his long-running horror franchise, but rather discrimination in general.

More than 40 years after "Night of the Living Dead" launched Romero's career in 1968, the 69-year-old American is back to his independent movie making roots with a picture in competition at the Venice film festival.

The self-financed Survival of the Dead tells the story of a band of soldiers lured to an island that promises to be the one place on earth where they can escape from the living dead, who feed on human flesh and appear as if from nowhere.

But they become embroiled in a generations-old dispute between two families who have radically different ideas on how to contain the zombies.

Patrick O'Flynn wants to put a bullet through the head of every zombie he can find, while his arch rival, Shamus Muldoon, wants to keep the "dead" alive in the hope of finding a cure.

"I wasn't looking at Iraq and saying, well, lets make a movie about Iraq," Romero told reporters on Wednesday.

"It's much more about man's underlying inability to forget enmity, forget their enemies even long after they've forgotten what started the conflict in the first place.

"I think that part of the problem is that nobody looks at both sides of any issue, it's automatically: I'm on this side or I'm on that side."

RETURN TO INDEPENDENT ROOTS

According to production notes for the film, Survival of the Dead is the second movie in Romero's new cycle of independent pictures made outside the studio system.

"We've made a couple of studio films and it's just a very different process," Romero said.

"These last two films, it's really like going back to the very original films that I made where it was really private financing and real guerrilla-style film making."

Night of the Living Dead was reportedly made on a shoestring budget yet came to redefine the horror genre with its violence and satirical view of American society.

"I've had the flexibility in these films to do whatever I wanted to do. At least there's no policeman looking over your shoulder ... There's no committee. That's a wonderful freedom to be able to have."

Romero credited the zombie's lasting cultural impact more to video games, like the Resident Evil series, than to his movies. "It's really not the zombie films. I think ... it's much more video games that have kept them alive."

Variety's review on the movie from Venice was largely negative, saying it was "steeped in fan-pleasing gore but woefully thin on ideas, originality ... or directorial flair. This is easily the least frightening of all the Dead movies."

Veteran Australian actor Ray Barrett dies aged 82

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Veteran Australian actor Ray Barrett, who became a familiar figure on British television in the 1960s and most recently appeared in the big-budget movie "Australia," has died at the age of 82.

Barrett died in a hospital on the Gold Coast in the state of Queensland after falling at his home and suffering a brain hemorrhage, his agent Jane Cameron told Australian media.

Barrett studied music, elocution and acting before moving to England, where the craggy-faced actor became a popular television star in the 1960s, appearing in a long list of shows.

He was the voice of some characters in the popular children's puppet series "Thunderbirds" and "Stingray," starred in the long-running BBC show "The Troubleshooters" and appeared in "Dr Who," "The Saint" and "Dixon of Dock Green," among others.

He moved back to Australia in the mid-1970s, appearing in various TV shows over the years as well as the screen adaptation of John Williamson's play "Don's Party" and the movie "The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith."

His last major role was as the character Ramsden in Baz Luhrmann's epic "Australia," released last year.

"Ray Barrett was one of Australia's great leading men ... Few Australian actors were as capable of delivering understatement and highly crafted meaning," wrote actor/director Graeme Blundell, who appeared with Barrett in "Don's Party," in an obituary.

Barrett was awarded the Australian Film Institute's Longford Life Achievement Award in 2005 for his long and distinguished acting career.

Rapper Santana accused of threatening girlfriend

TEANECK, N.J. – Rapper Juelz Santana is accused of threatening his girlfriend with a knife in his New Jersey home.

Teaneck police charged Santana, whose real name is LaRon James, with making terroristic threats and possessing a weapon. He's free on $5,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in Municipal Court on Sept. 9.

Capt. Dean Kazinci says Santana's girlfriend told police a verbal dispute became physical Tuesday.

Kazinci says the rapper told officers the woman was the aggressor and she had the knife.

Police say the girlfriend, whose name was not released, had minor injuries that did not require medical treatment.

Santana records for Def Jam Recordings. His song "There it Go" was a top ten single in 2005.

Completely Cool at the "Inglourious Basterds" Premiere

Los Angeles – They were the cool couple in black, he in a linen suit and she in a fabulous, form-fitting strapless leather dress. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie stopped traffic on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles on Monday, Aug. 10, as they joined Quentin Tarantino at the premiere of "Inglourious Basterds."

That's Tarantino's quirky film foray into World War II, with Pitt in the starring role. As Tarantino told reporters earlier at a press day for the film, "we've been wanting to work with each other for a little while now, and when I was writing this script with Aldo as the main character, Brad has been in my mind for a long time and he's always just been Aldo. It was Brad Pitt and then there was nobody else. I'm usually happy about having a second and a third choice, but not this time."

Tarantino got Pitt to play "this hillbilly, part Indian, who would know a lot about war history and Geronimo's battle plan, who would take a bunch of Jewish American soldiers, go behind enemy lines and do an Apache resistance against the Nazis," which should tell audiences that this is a slightly wacky, very R-rated war film.

No one seemed to worry much about the graphic violence as the movie unspooled at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, especially not Brad's German-born co-star Diane Kruger, who wore a minidress made with black glass fringe and a daringly low-cut open back.

"People are always asking me, 'Well, how is it going to go down in Germany?' People were cheering when we screened it there, because the truth is they've wanted to get rid of Hitler if they could, for years, get it over with for years," she said.

Joining in the cheering at the premiere were Tarantino fans Bridget Fonda, Sarah Silverman, Carla Gugino, Samuel L. Jackson, Tia Carrere, Tony Hawk, Christina Ricci, Jeremy Renner, Cloris Leachman, Maria Menounos, and the other stars of "Basterds" - Eli Roth, Melanie Laurent, B. J. Novak, Christoph Waltz, and Michael Fassbender.

Second Yves Saint Laurent art sale set for November

PARIS (Reuters) – A second auction of art works once belonging to Yves Saint Laurent will be held in November after the main part of the late designer's huge collection was sold earlier this year, auctioneers Christie's said on Monday.

As well as modern art and Old Master pictures and drawings by artists including Picasso, Fernand Leger and Miro, the sale in Paris will include furniture and various Art Deco objects that decorated the sumptuous rooms of Saint Laurent's chateau.

The first sale of treasures belonging to Saint Laurent and his companion and business partner, Pierre Berge, raised more than 370 million euros ($525 million) in February in the biggest private auction seen in Paris in many years.

The second sale, to be held on November 17-19, will include almost 1,200 works housed in Chateau Gabriel, a 19th-century Normandy country house bought by the couple in the 1980s, as well as their two Paris residences.

As in the first sale, which included masterpieces by artists ranging from Picasso and Matisse to ancient Roman sculptures, 17th-century German silverware and art deco furniture, proceeds will be donated to AIDS research.

Berge and Saint Laurent built up one of the world's biggest and most important private art collections over some five decades but Berge decided to sell it all after Saint Laurent died in June 2008 at the age of 71.

Christie's said that after the auction of the main pieces of the collection in February, the second would present objects "of a more understated charm."

The two men decorated their country residence in a style inspired by the rarified atmosphere of Marcel Proust's novel cycle "A la recherche du temps perdu" ("In Search of Lost Time"), a great favorite of the late designer.

Among the items on sale is a large Ming Dynasty basin.

The first auction was hit by a dispute over two bronze sculptures looted from China in the 19th century.

China said the two Qing dynasty bronzes, seized from Beijing in 1860 during the Opium Wars, should be handed back because they had been taken illegally.

Berge rejected the claim but said he would give them back if China guaranteed human rights and allowed the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama to return home.

'Harry Potter' actor admits growing marijuana

LONDON – A teenage cast member of the "Harry Potter" movies has appeared in a London court and admitted to growing marijuana.

Jamie Waylett pleaded guilty to growing the drug during a hearing Thursday at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court.

The 19-year-old Waylett plays school bully Vincent Crabbe in all six installments of the film franchise.

Police found eight bags of cannabis and a knife during a search of a car Waylett was riding in. They then searched his mother's house and found 10 marijuana plants.

Waylett pleaded guilty to producing cannabis, which carries a maximum 14-year sentence. His friend John Innis pleaded guilty to drug possession.

Judge Timothy Workman said the pair would be sentenced Tuesday.