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London, October 31 (ANI): Mel Gibson believes that his 1995 film ‘Braveheart’ led to political upheaval in Scotland, as the country was granted autonomy by the U.K government in 1998.

The actor insisted that the mood for devolution in Scotland was set by the historical movie about legendary Scot, William Wallace.

‘I became really aware of what a piece of art could do to change things. Scotland had received partial autonomy, but I think the film started the ball rolling on some stuff,” the Daily Express quoted him as saying.

He added: “On the way to the premiere in Scotland the crowd was 50-deep and I couldn’t believe there was so much feeling and fervour about the subject. It hit a chord, definitely.’

The Scottish Parliament was set up as part of the autonomy and the citizens were permitted to deal with affairs like education, environment and healthcare. (ANI)

London, Oct 31 (ANI): Tito Jackson is all set to testify in court to support his pal David Gest in his case against a Los Angeles auction house.

Music mogul Gest is suing Julien’s Auctions for more than 625,000 pounds in damages after the company offered 21 Jackson family items— including a Platinum RIAA Record Award for Thriller—telling clients they were from Gest’s personal collection.

Gest has claimed that he had no idea of the sale in Las Vegas, which took place just days after the King of Pop’s death in June (09).

And now, Jackson 5 singer Tito has vowed to take to the stand to support his pal.

‘I am amazed that an auction house like Julien’s Auctions would use David Gest’s name to sell an item that was not his. There are a number of the items that they listed in their Michael Jackson catalogue on June 26-27 that never even belonged to David Gest. I will also testify in court that this RIAA Award Disc for Thriller Presented to Steve Manning never belonged to David Gest,” The Daily Express quoted Jackson as saying. (ANI)

London, Oct 31 (IANS) Rapper Chris Brown seems to have moved on after splitting from ex-girlfriend Rihanna. The singer has been spotted romancing reality TV star Natalie Nunn.

Despite professing his love for Rihanna in recent Internet posts and interviews, Brown has accepted he won’t be reconciling with her anytime soon. A court order demands he stays at least 100 yards away from the R&B star who he had beaten up after a violent row in February.

And now he has a new love interest in Nunn, reported femalefirst.co.uk.

Brown is often spotted having fun with Nunn, a contestant in the upcoming season of reality show “The Bad Girls Club”.

London, Oct 31(ANI): F1 champ Lewis Hamilton feels that there are lots of similarities between him and the late king of pop Michael Jackson.

‘We share some things in common, my dad always pushed me very hard, and his dad pushed him very hard and always wanted the best for him,’ the Mirror quoted him as saying in an interview on Kiss.

The 24-year-old British driver says he has huge amount of respect for the ‘Thriller’ hitmaker.

‘I still think today and for many many years and decades he will continue to be the greatest of all time, I don’t think anyone can match him,’ he added.

Hamilton also revealed that he had fallen for Pussycat Dolls singer Nicole Scherzinger at first meeting.

‘When I first saw them in 2004, I was blown away by the talent and beauty of Nicole Scherzinger. I had a serious crush on her, to say the least,” he said. (ANI)

Washington, October 31 (ANI): Teen sensation Miley Cyrus is planning to celebrate her 17th birthday next month with a Dolly Parton-theme.

The Hannah Montana actress, who shares the same Nashville, Tennessee hometown with the veteran country music star, confessed being a huge Parton fan.

Miley revealed her plans about her big day on November 23 during a recent appearance on U.S. presenter Ryan Seacrest’s radio show.

‘I want to rent out a cool place and play all Dolly Parton music and have everyone dress up as their favourite Dolly moment,” Contactmusic quoted her as telling the host.

‘I am really excited about getting all my crew members to dress up as Dolly. That’s probably going to be the funniest thing ever,’ she added. (ANI)

New York, October 31 (ANI): Paris Hilton is furious with the teen bandits who recently burgled her house and escaped with her clothes and jewelry.

According to TMZ, she was heard saying, ‘I hate them!’ while leaving Mr. Chow restaurant.

The police have said that the gang targeted homes of celebrities including Lindsay Lohan, Orlando Bloom, Megan Fox, Brian Austin Green, Audrina Patridge, Ashley Tisdale and Rachel Bilson.

The robbers allegedly derived details of the celebrities’ timings, when they were in and out of their house, from the web, reports the New York Post.

Seemingly, they had noted who would be out of the town through gossip columns. (ANI)

New Delhi, Oct 31 (IANS) Hollywood screenplay writer-director Paul Schrader says “Xtrme City”, his first Indian collaboration dealing with the Mumbai mafia and slums, is also about romance, families and obligations.

“The script that I am dealing with is about two men who’ve worked together – an American policeman and an Indian ex-bhai. But it’s not a gangster film. It’s not a ‘Satya’, ‘Company’ or ‘Sarkar’. It’s a different kind of film,” Schrader told IANS in a telephonic interview from Mumbai.

“It has to deal with the world of crime but it also has to deal with families, romance and farce. Mostly it’s about farce and obligations,” he said on the sidelines of the Mumbai Film Festival (MFF).

MFF is an initiative by Reliance Big Entertainment and the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI) and Schrader is an international jury for the ongoing fest.

“Xtrme City” found its genesis last year when he travelled to the Osian’s Cinefan Film Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema in the capital.

“I was here a year ago and went around with Anubhav Sinha (Bollywood director) and Mushtaq Sheikh (writer). Mushtaq and I have been working on the script since last year. We’ve finished the script and now we’re ready to take the next step. The film will have American and Indian stars, but it is all set here (in Mumbai).

“Hopefully, we’ll finance it here and for that we need to cast. So we’re looking at who might possibly be a good actor,” he said.

Asked about probable names like Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan as reported in the media, he said: “It’s a small list and they are in the newspaper every single day. I don’t know who’d be in the film. But the idea is to start here.”

The film will be co-produced by David Weisman of Oscar-winning “Kiss of the Spiderwoman” fame and Sinha. Schrader says that the film will be a team work.

“We’ll put together a team. I am not going to do this alone. I am not going to shoot the song and dance and probably not even the action. We’ll do this together,” he said.

Schrader scripted Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” and “The Last Temptation of Christ” and has directed films like “American Gigolo” and “Affliction”.

Asked if “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Xtrme City” were laying the foundation to a trend of crossover films between the two industries, he said: “First of all I don’t even know if ‘Xtrme City’ will even ever get made to be honest. A lot of wonderful films don’t get made. It’s a very unique test. It’s far too early to call it a trend.

” ‘Slumdog…’ certainly made a lot of people aware of how much interest there is in India, but I don’t know whether that’s a trend.”

The 63-year-old is keeping his fingers crossed for his thriller to materialise.

Apart from “Xtrme City”, Schrader is set to wield the megaphone for “an action film in Mexico in the spring” and has written the movie “The Dying of the Light” for Harrison Ford.

(Robin Bansal can be contacted at robin.b@ians.in)

Dusseldorf, Oct 30 (DPA) A live hand grenade was discovered at a cinema showing the documentary of the last days of Michael Jackson’s life, police said Friday.

A cleaner at Kinowelt in Dusseldorf found the Yugoslav-made grenade on a seat while tidying up after the movie “This Is It” Thursday evening.

Police evacuated the multiplex after the discovery and searched the premises with six sniffer dogs, but found no more suspicious objects.

Experts were examining the hand grenade, which was wrapped in a serviette, to see if they could determine who left it there.

London, Oct 30 (ANI): The last music video directed by Heath Ledger, believed to have been the inspiration behind his Oscar winning performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight, has come to light.

The Aussie actor had directed the three-and-a-half rap minute video titled ‘Cause An Effect’ for his childhood rapper friend No Fixed Abode, before he died of a prescription drug overdose in January last year.

Ledger lensed the whole project in his Sydney garage using only one camera, adding dramatic make-up, bold colours and red light.

‘The idea was to keep it very artistic which is what we did,’ the Mirror quoted the No Fixed Abode frontman N’FA, as saying.

The artist added: ‘Heath directed really well … and I know that Heath was happy with the work. Every day I count my blessings that I got to have him direct this piece of art. Thank you very much Heath for all your help, I wish you were here.’

Earlier Ledger had helmed videos for guitarist Ben Drake and rock band Modest Mouse. (ANI)

Melbourne, Oct 30 (ANI): Robbie Williams was close to death after his last world tour but eventually bounced back to life, thanks to girlfriend Ayda Field.

The singer’s last world tour ended in Australia in December 2006. The gruelling, record-breaking nine-month stadium tour took toll on Williams.

Williams, who’d beaten alcohol and cocaine addictions in the past, started downing dangerous amounts of prescription drugs.

‘I know it gets sensationalised when I say, ‘I was very close to death’, but I was. It was a scary time. It’s scarier since people like Michael Jackson and Heath Ledger have been popping their clogs,’ News.com.au quoted Williams as saying.

Williams gave up music and didn’t want to be a pop star any more.

On Williams’ 33rd birthday in February 2007, his management asked him to check into rehab to kick his drug addiction.

He said: ‘I pretty much thought ‘Is this worth it?’ It was obviously not making me happy. The definition of insanity is repeating the same things and expecting a different result. At the time I thought, with the kicking and the rehab, maybe there’s other things in life?’

And then, Williams met actress Ayda Field.

‘Yeah, I got big. Normally the woman gets bigger once they’ve fallen in love, they call it the honey trap … ‘I’ve got him, I’ll sit on the sofa and eat what I want’,” Williams said.

‘It happened in reverse this time, I found the woman I love and I thought, ‘OK, I don’t have to fit in these trousers’, and did the eating thing.

‘She did too, but she’s got far better genes. I like to do things in reverse like that,” he added. (ANI)

Washington, Oct 30 (ANI): Andrew Morton, the controversial biographer, has slammed reports that his latest book on Angelina Jolie’s life suggests the actress romanced her mum’s lover.

Ever since the British writer has started writing his tome on the ‘Tomb Raider’ star, tongues have been wagging over what information the book throws up.

Morton has insisted that the book will be a great read, but it doesn’t claim that the actress slept with her late mother Marcheline Bertrand’s live-in lover when she was just 16 – a fling that allegedly destroyed the relationship.

‘It’s about as true as I’m sitting on this horse,” Contactmusic quoted Morton as telling Life & Style magazine.

The author has not revealed what he’s gathered for his book.

Morton has also penned exposes about Princess Diana and Tom Cruise. (ANI)

London, Oct 30 (ANI): Michael Jackson’s creditors list is increasing every day, and this time it’s a triple ‘Thriller’ that has joined the bandwagon.

The ‘Thriller’ video’s director, the company behind the promo and the man who produced it have all filed for claims, demanding cash they allegedly owed from the late King of Pop, reports The Daily Express.

Filmmaker John Landis has claimed Jackson owed him more than 250,000 pounds from a deal the pop superstar made to take Thriller to Broadway.

Ands the bosses of Levitsky Productions, the company which hired Landis to write and make the hit video and documentary, have said that they are due 625,000 pounds in royalties.

In addition, producer George Folsey Jr. has alleged that Jackson failed to pay him his share of Thriller-related merchandise.

According to TMZ.com, he’s asking for at least 625,000 pounds from the late star’s estate. (ANI)

London, Oct 30 (ANI): Sony believes its documentary on Michael Jackson could well be in the race for the best picture Oscar award.

The company’s spokesman Steve Elzer said the studio would submit the documentary on the late King of Pop, titled ‘This Is It’, to the Academy Awards panel for consideration.

Although ‘This Is It’ has missed the deadline for consideration as the best documentary of 2009, it can still compete for the Oscars in other categories including sound, film editing, director and best picture.

‘This Is It’ was released across the world this week and has already won fans’ praise and critical acclaim, apart from earning 12.3 million pounds in just two days.

Jackson’s long time collaborator, Kenny Ortega has directed the film from over 100 hours of footage recorded while MJ was rehearsing for his July 2010 O2 shows.

‘What we did here was focus on telling a good story and creating a film for the fans, really enabling them to understand what Michael Jackson had dreamed for them,’ the Daily Express quoted Ortega, as saying.

He added that he hoped ‘the audience for this film will grow and that as many people come to see it as possible because I think that it’s a wonderful story about a brilliant man. … Awards, Oscars, that’s all great wishful thinking.’ (ANI)

London, October 30 (ANI): Pop sensation Lady GaGa has revealed that she was called ‘Gee-yonce’ while shooting for Beyone’s music video.

The ‘Single Lady’ hitmaker had requested the ‘Poker Face’ hitmaker to feature in her new single ‘Video Phone’ earlier this month.

“When I was doing her video with her, she called me, and she said, ‘What do you want to do?’” the Mirror quoted Gaga as telling a US radio station.

She added: “And I’m like, ‘I don’t want to show up in some frickin’ hair bow and be fashion GaGa in your video’. I said, ‘I want to do you’.

“So the whole time I was learning the choreography, they were calling me Gee-yonce.”

Meanwhile, Beyonce has said that she intends to thank GaGa by singing in her future album.

They have recorded a duet called Telephone, which will be included in new version of Fame Monster releasing on November 23. (ANI)

London, Oct 30 (ANI): Madonna’s ongoing Malawi visit is proving to be a boon for the nation’s people, as the pop diva has promised electricity to a village in the impoverished country.

Madonna, along with her children Lourdes, Mercy and David, made a trip to an orphanage in Mphandu to launch a kids’ Kabbalah scheme and later told the people of the village that she would bring electricity there.

‘I know you work in darkness. I will bring you electricity,’ the Sun quoted her, as saying.

Only two days ago Madonna had kick started the work on her new 10-million-pound girls’ academy in Malawi and had promised to build more schools across the world. (ANI)

Los Angeles, Oct 30 (DPA) “This Is It”, the documentary movie that followed Michael Jackson’s concert rehearsals in the days before his shock death in June, earned $20.1 million at the US box office on its first full day of release, according to The Hollywood Reporter Thursday.

The film earned a $12.7 million internationally and another $7.4 million in the US, the report said.

The enthusiastic reception could prompt Sony Pictures to extend the movie’s two week screening window, as positive reviews and word-of-mouth approval send more fans to see the 90-minute documentary culled from some 100 hours of rehearsal footage.

The box office haul was released in conjunction with a report from Forbes magazine that identified Jackson as one of the year’s top earning dead celebrities. He earned $90 million in the year, including $72 million since his death.

Jackson was beaten by fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, who earned $350 million, and songwriting duo Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein who earned $235 million. But he came ahead of last year’s No. 1, Elvis Presley, with $55 million; “The Lord of the Rings” author J.R.R. Tolkien with $50 million; and John Lennon with $9 million.

Jackson’s father Joe Jackson announced Wednesday night that a tribute museum to the star would be built in his hometown of Gary, Indiana. The Jackson patriarch, who has been accused of numerous attempts to cash in on his son’s talent, announced plans for the museum, hotel and performing arts centre together with Gary mayor Rudy Clay in Los Angeles. However there were no details on how the projects will be funded and it is unclear whether Jackson’s estate will back the effort.

London, Oct 29(IANS) Actress Kate Hudson discusses the intimate details of her love life with her mother Goldie Hawn and stepfather Kurt Russell.

“They love sex! They talk about it all day. Kate gets graphic talking about her boyfriend’s body even to her parents,” femalefirst.co.uk quoted a source as saying.

The 30-year-old actress, who has a five-year-old son Ryder with ex-husband Chris Robinson, has grown increasingly close to the 34-year-old baseball player Alex Rodriguez ever since they started dating in May.

Friends close to them claim that she has helped him curb his wild ways.

“She is with him every second. Kate is changing him for the better,” said a friend.

London, Oct 29 (IANS) Pop diva Madonna was left fuming after well-known Indian yoga guru Bikram Choudhury refused to give her private lessons insisting that the singer would have to take classes with his other students.

The pop superstar had recently parted ways with her longterm fitness trainer Tracy Anderson saying that she wanted to try a new method of working out, reports contactmusic.com.

Madonna’s plan to hire “Bikram Yoga” inventor Bikram Choudhury went awry when the yoga guru turned down her request accusing her of being too temperamental.

“Madonna came to me and asked for private lessons. I told her that if you want to learn from me, then you have to come to my classes. You have to leave your ego behind,” said Choudhury.

“If you disagree with her (Madonna), you are immediately blacklisted,” he added.

Choudhury insisted none of his other celebrity clients, including George Clooney, Jessica Simpson and Jim Carrey have ever objected to his methods.

Washington, Oct 29 (ANI): Michael Jackson’s father Joe Jackson has praised his late son’s This Is It concert rehearsal movie after watching it.

Initially, Joe had poured scorn on the film, suggesting director Kenny Ortega had used his son’s body double to flesh out the film.

However, after watching the finished product, Jackson is thrilled with the movie.

He saw it with boxing promoter Don King at The Palms resort.

‘The performance is great because it’s Michael performing. He’s always going to give a good show,’ the Daily Express quoted him as saying.

And now the Jackson family patriarch is urging critics to be nice to his son’s film.

‘I don’t know what the media are going to say, but after they see the movie, I hope it’s good… If the media talks good in favour of the movie, that’s fantastic,’ he said.

Brother Jackie Jackson, who has seen the movie, has admitted that he loves it.

‘It’s Michael at his best… It’s wonderful to see him onstage,’ he said. (ANI)

Melbourne, October 29 (ANI): Britney Spears has revealed that she prefers rocking to the tunes of the Beatles rather than those of Elvis Presley.

The pop princess was asked in an interview via email who would she choose between the two music legends.

“Beatles, they are just so iconic,” the Herald Sun quoted her as saying.

The singer, who will soon begin her Australian tour in Perth, was also quizzed about the frequently played song on her iPod.

She said: “Right now its Beyonce’s Halo. It just puts me in a trance, it’s so well written and she is so intense singing it.” (ANI)