Plans for a three-city exhibition of Michael Jackson memorabilia could be derailed by suspicion and distrust among Jackson's mother, the men Jackson named as executors of his will and the promoter of his planned comeback concerts. A judge delayed his approval of the exhibition agreement between concert promoter AEG Live and the Jackson estate until Friday, when he will hear testimony about why Katherine Jackson thinks it should be renegotiated. Questions surrounding Michael Jackson's death and AEG Live's role in ...

"The Time Traveler's Wife," adapted from the 2003 best-seller by Audrey Niffenegger, is one of those gooey romantic mind-benders, like "Ghost" (which I adored) or "The Lake House" (not so much), in which a couple must come to grips with some trippy impediment to their relationship, such as life after death or a hole in the space-time continuum. Only instead of being milked for elaborate science-fiction thrills, the problem at hand gets treated as a weepy and grandiose inconvenience. ...

While Hurricane Gustav was chewing up Cuba and storming toward Louisiana, the screen of the Venice Film Festival's Sala Grande was showing a very sweet tsunami. In the animated movie Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, the swelling waves take the form of dolphins, and when a Japanese coastal village gets submerged no one is killed or hurt — just amusingly displaced. The rising up of the marine world is not insurrection against humanity but gently cautionary ...

Rob Thomas is a busy guy -- so busy, he apparently hasn't had much time to check in with his Matchbox Twenty bandmates. We only know this because we ran into guitarist Paul Doucette at the BMI Pop Awards in Beverly Hills several weeks ago, where he was picking up a plaque for songwriter of the year. "We're interviewing Rob about his solo album," I told him. "Hey," Doucette exclaimed. "Tell that guy to call me, would ...

Crouching in a verdant pasture in the early summer sun, Eduardo Sousa plucks a few blades of grass and extends them toward a flock of geese. "Hello, my darlings," he coos. "Hello, hello, hello." It is the Spanish farmer's first visit to the Stone Barns Center, a farm and education center dedicated to sustainable agriculture in Pocantico Hills, some 30 miles north of New York City, and Sousa is impressed with what he sees. "If I ...

Anne Frank's account of hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam during World War II, published posthumously in English as "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl," has moved millions of readers across the decades. This fall countless more American schoolchildren will be introduced to Frank's chronicle, and for many of them it will be their first exposure to the horrors of the Holocaust. "As long as humankind exists this will be one of the most widely read and ...

North American movie theaters served as the field of combat for two action figures from '60s TV: the Hasbro toy soldier G.I. Joe and the animated "French chef" Julia Child. The raw box-office count suggests an overwhelming victory for the would-be blockbuster. Behind the numbers, though, was evidence of a standoff, with each side able to claim victory. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra took in $56.2 million, according to ...

G.I. Joe has seen a lot of action over his 45 years. The soldier has been a toy, a comic book, a cartoon, another toy and several videogames. But on Aug. 7, G.I. Joe gets his most challenging mission yet: anchoring his own live-action film. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra hopes it can emulate Transformers and turn nostalgia for the 1980s toys and cartoons into success at the box office. While toy company Mattel could barely keep ...

John Hughes, the producer, writer and director whose 1980s films such as "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club" and "Some Kind of Wonderful" offered a sharp-eyed look at teenagers and their social habits, has died, according to a statement from his representative. He was 59. Hughes died of a heart attack while taking a morning walk in Manhattan, according to the statement. Hughes, who was also a prolific screenwriter and producer, was at his peak in the 1980s, when his films ...

It was a heartwarming sight: Laura Ling and Euna Lee landing on U.S. soil and being reunited with their families. Then, after an appropriate amount of time for hugs and kisses, Bill Clinton appeared, descending from his movie-producer friend's plane like an angel from heaven. An emotional Ling practically referred to the former president as a messiah, describing to the media and well-wishers waiting at the airport how she and Lee thought they were being sent to a hard-labor camp, ...