British-born filmmaker Tony Scott jumps to death

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - British-born filmmaker Tony Scott, director of such Hollywood blockbusters as 'Top Gun' and 'Crimson Tide,' jumped to his death on Sunday from a bridge over Los Angeles Harbor, the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office said.

Onlookers saw Scott, who was 68, parking his car on the Vincent Thomas Bridge and leaping into the water below at about 12:30 p.m. local time (1930 GMT), according to Lieutenant Joe Bale, a watch commander for the coroner's office.

Bale said the body was recovered by law enforcement from the harbor shortly before 3 p.m. and was subsequently identified as being that of the filmmaker and younger brother of fellow movie director Ridley Scott.

A note was found in Scott's car that Bale said he believed would turn out to be a suicide note, though he was not familiar with its contents. 'Typically, when they find a note in cases like this, it's not a shopping list,' he said.

The bridge, the surface of which clears the harbor's navigation channel by a height of about 185 feet, connects the port district of San Pedro at the southern tip of Los Angeles to Terminal Island in the harbor.

A spokeswoman for the filmmaker, Katherine Rowe, said in a brief statement, 'I can confirm that Tony Scott has indeed passed away,' adding only, 'The family asks that their privacy be respected at this time.'

MUSCULAR

Scott, born in North Shields, Northumberland, in England, and frequently seen behind the camera in his signature faded red baseball cap, is credited with directing more than two dozen movies and television shows and producing nearly 50 titles.

He was best known for muscular but stylish high-octane thrillers that showcased some of Hollywood's biggest stars in a body of work that dated back to the 1980s and established him as one of the most successful action directors in the business.

He got his start making TV commercials for his older sibling's London-based production company, Ridley Scott Associates, and segued into movies for television and film.

His feature directorial debut - 1983 vampire movie 'The Hunger' starring British rocker David Bowie and French actress Catherine Deneuve - was a flop. But he bounced back three years later with the fighter jet adventure 'Top Gun,' which starred Tom Cruise as a hot-shot pilot and followed that with another big hit, the 1987 Eddie Murphy comedy 'Beverly Hills Cop II.'

Other notable directing credits include the 1990 racing drama 'Days of Thunder,' which also featured Cruise, the 1995 submarine thriller 'Crimson Tide,' co-starring Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman, and the 1998 spy thriller 'Enemy of the State,' which paired Hackman and Will Smith. The 2001 espionage drama 'Spy Game' teamed Robert Redford with Brad Pitt.

Denzel Washington became Scott's most frequent star, appearing in four other films by the director - the 2004 vengeance drama 'Man on Fire,' 2006 sci-fi adventure 'Deja Vu,' a 2009 remake of 'The Taking of the Pelham 1 2 3,' a subway hostage thriller co-starring John Travolta, and the 2010 runaway-train blockbuster, 'Unstoppable.'

Scott and his older brother were executive producers together on two successful prime-time television dramas, 'Numb3rs,' which ran on CBS from 2005 to 2010, and 'The Good Wife,' which premiered in 2009 and is still running in CBS.

According to the Hollywood website Internet Movie Database, Tony Scott had been in production as the director of a film called 'Emma's War,' about a British aid worker in Sudan who marries a warlord seeking to control part of the country.

Scott is survived by his third wife, Donna, with whom he had two children.

(Reporting and writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Paul Simao and Patrick Graham)



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John Stewart comforts Robert Pattinson with ice cream

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Robert Pattinson awkwardly tried to deflect questions about his recent issues with Kristen Stewart during an appearance Monday on 'The Daily Show.'

But Jon Stewart was there with two pints of ice cream goodness to try to pick up the pieces.

'The last time I had a bad break-up, Ben & Jerry's got me through some of the tougher times,' Stewart told Pattinson.

'We're just a couple of gals talking... tell me everything,' he coaxed.

Pattinson, who emerged from his recent self-imposed exile to promote his upcoming film 'Cosmopolis,' never mentioned Stewart by name and never alluded to the cheating scandal with her 'Snow White and the Huntsman' director Rupert Sanders.

But he acknowledged one mistake.

'My biggest problem in my life is I'm cheap and I didn't hire a publicist,' Pattinson said.

Stewart didn't really press the 'Twilight' actor to bare his heart, but he did offer some sage advice about the outpouring of global grief that greeted the news of Stewart's two-timing ways.

'When you are young and you break up, it's powerful and it feels like the world is ending,' Stewart said. 'This is the first time I have seen the world actually react that way.'



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French mayor denies "Brangelina" to wed at weekend

PARIS (Reuters) - A French mayor on Tuesday denied a report in celebrity magazine Hello that quoted him saying Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, who own a chateau nearby, were due to get married this weekend.

The A-list Hollywood couple own the 17th-century Chateau Miraval in southeastern France, and celebrity publications have been rife with rumors in recent weeks that they were planning to wed soon.

'I don't know who they are,' said Michael Latz, mayor of the village of Correns where the couple dubbed 'Brangelina' have their chateau, when asked if he had spoken to Hello.

He said he was not aware of any wedding, and added: 'It's nonsense. I've had 50 phone calls and I am telling everyone to get lost because this is tiresome and irritates me.

'I am going to pursue them (Hello) for misleading statements.'

Hello magazine reported on its website on Tuesday that the mayor had said Jolie and Pitt would marry this weekend, although it did not quote him directly.

Jolie, 37, and Pitt, 48, announced their engagement in April but have not publicly set a wedding date. The couple have been together since 2005 and are raising six children.

(Reporting by Brian Love; Writing by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)



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Jennifer Aniston engaged to actor Justin Theroux

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former 'Friends' star Jennifer Aniston is engaged to marry her actor and screenwriter boyfriend Justin Theroux, People magazine reported on Sunday.

'Justin Theroux had an amazing birthday on Friday, receiving an extraordinary gift when his girlfriend Jennifer Aniston accepted his proposal of marriage,' Theroux's representative told the celebrity magazine.

Aniston's publicist Steven Huvane confirmed the engagement.

Aniston, 43, and Theroux, 41, have been dating for more than a year and appeared in the comedy 'Wanderlust' in February.

No wedding date was announced.

The marriage will be the second for Aniston, one of Hollywood's favorite actresses and a frequent face in romantic comedies.

Her first union with Brad Pitt ended in divorce after five in 2005, when Pitt fell in love with actress Angelina Jolie, and Aniston's love life has been followed assiduously ever since by the world's celebrity media.

Aniston's previous boyfriends include singer John Mayer and actor Vince Vaughn.

Pitt and Jolie announced their engagement in April but have not publicly set a wedding date.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant)



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Revamped "Bourne" captures movie box office crown

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Action movie 'The Bourne Legacy,' with new star Jeremy Renner, raced to the No. 1 spot on U.S. and Canadian box office charts with an estimated $40.3 million in ticket sales over the weekend.

New adult comedy 'The Campaign' debuted in second place, winning $27.4 million at domestic theaters. The two new movies knocked three-time box office champion 'The Dark Knight Rises' to third place.

'Bourne Legacy' is the fourth movie in the spy franchise that previously starred Matt Damon and has grossed nearly $1 billion around the world. Damon played a CIA assassin with memory loss who tried to discover his true identity while evading the CIA's attempts to kill him.

Universal cast Renner in the new movie in an effort to reboot the series for future sequels. Renner plays agent Aaron Cross, who tries to escape his CIA pursuers with the help of genetic scientist Marta Shearing, played by Rachel Weisz.

Universal and privately held Relativity Media produced 'Bourne Legacy' for about $125 million. Opening weekend sales beat Universal's projections for a $35 million debut.

Nikki Rocco, Universal Pictures' president of domestic distribution, said the film performed as expected, and that the studio was happy with its opening weekend.

'It's a validation, it's a successful rebooting of the franchise,' she said, adding that it gives Universal an opportunity to continue the Bourne saga.

'The Bourne Legacy' nabbed $48.1 million worldwide over the weekend, bringing its global total to $88.4 million.

'The Campaign' also exceeded pre-weekend forecasts, which had the film debuting with around $20 million. The movie stars Will Ferrell and Zack Galifianakis as two candidates facing off against each other in a race for U.S. Congress.

Dan Fellman, president of theatrical distribution for Warner Bros., said the political comedy played especially well in Washington and Boston as the U.S. presidential campaign gets into full swing.

'We think that the real campaign will add to our 'Campaign',' he said.

'Dark Knight Rises,' the final movie in a Batman trilogy starring Christian Bale, took in $19.5 million at North American (U.S. and Canadian) theaters over the weekend. The blockbuster has grossed over $390 million in the U.S. and Canada since its July 20 debut.

'Hope Springs,' a new romantic comedy/drama, finished the weekend in the No. 4 spot with $15.6 million. The film stars Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones as an aging couple trying to bring a spark back to their marriage.

'Hope DOES spring,' said Rory Bruer, president of distribution at Sony, who expects the film to continue to play well among older audiences.

In fifth place, family film 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days' earned $8.2 million during its second weekend in theaters.

Despite doing well overseas, science-fiction reboot 'Total Recall' took in a meager $8.1 million its second weekend, taking a tumble from its tepid $26 million opening.

Comcast Corp's Universal Pictures released 'Bourne Legacy.' 'The Dark Knight Rises' and 'The Campaign' were distributed by Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner Inc.. Sony Corp's film studio released 'Hope Springs,' and News Corp's 20th Century Fox studio distributed 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid.'

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine and Andrea Burzynski; Editing by Doina Chiacu)



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5 great movies about troubled marriages

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones play a longtime married couple who've fallen into a rut in the surprisingly honest and effective 'Hope Springs.' She hopes intensive couples' therapy will restore their romance; he's content to fall asleep in front of the television every night watching The Golf Channel.

Marriage, in all its states, is such a universal topic that it's been portrayed in countless films. But troubled marriages can provide showy performances and moments of uncomfortable truth. Here are five great examples:

-'Scenes From a Marriage' (1973): One of Ingmar Bergman's very best, this intimate and piercing drama follows a seemingly happy, upper-middle class Swedish couple over the years as their marriage falls apart. Marianne (Liv Ullmann) and Johan (Erland Josephson) destroy each other, drift apart and eventually wind up with other people, but still find themselves intrinsically tied to each other. Working with his longtime collaborator, the great cinematographer Sven Nyqvist, Bergman is unflinching and uncompromising in his examination of this flawed and all-too human love affair, and Ullmann and Josephson are pitch-perfect. Originally presented as a six-part TV miniseries, it was edited down to a feature film of nearly three hours. Not a moment of emotion has been lost.

- 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' (1966): I reference this movie a lot, I realize, but this week's list would seem empty without it. It's the ultimate train wreck: Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton booze it up and berate each other in front a poor, unsuspecting young couple who had the misfortune of saying 'yes' to their invitation to come over one night. Mike Nichols' adaptation of Edward Albee's play, his assured directing debut, would have had a relentless sense of claustrophobia anyway. But the fact that Burton and Taylor had such a notoriously tumultuous off-screen relationship (they were married to each other in real life - for the first time) made their on-screen barbs seem that much more severe. Nominated for 13 Academy Awards, it won five, including best actress for Taylor's scathing performance.

- 'Blue Valentine' (2010): A heartbreaking drama about the disintegration of a marriage depicted in such raw, unadorned and sometimes uncomfortably close fashion, it makes you feel as if you're watching a documentary about a real-life couple. Michelle Williams earned the second of her three Oscar nominations here, although co-star Ryan Gosling deserved one just as much; each needs the other for their dynamic to work, and both deliver performances of convincing power. Director Derek Cianfrance skips back and forth in time between the idyllic days of their youthful courtship and the distance that divides them years later as working-class parents, once they've realized how different their goals are. Their overnight hotel getaway, a last gasp at salvaging their marriage, is both hopeful and heartbreaking.

- 'The War of the Roses' (1989): Because we had to have a comedy in here somewhere - even the blackest of black comedies - to keep ourselves from getting too terribly depressed. Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner reteam with their 'Romancing the Stone' co-star Danny DeVito, who also directs, for a film that couldn't be more different (and more bereft of romance). As Oliver and Barbara Rose, Douglas and Turner tear each other and everything around them apart. Calling this a messy divorce would be an understatement; what happens to the couple's opulent mansion more closely resembles a war zone. As much an indictment of the conspicuous consumption of the era as it is a cynical depiction of modern love.

- 'I Am Love' (2010): A vibrantly gorgeous film about a marriage slowly, quietly dying. The versatile and chameleon-like Tilda Swinton shows yet another side to her staggering talent here, speaking fluent Italian (and even a little Russian) as the gracious and impeccably dressed wife of a Milanese industrialist. She would seem to have it all with her husband and three children in their palatial home - until she realizes she's not happy. A young chef catches her eye and helps her rediscover the woman she used to be, inspiring a climactic departure of operatic proportions. Italian director Luca Guadagnino's retro-styled melodrama recalls Visconti and Sirk in its lush trappings, but Swinton's formidable presence at the center always keeps things grounded and real.

___

Think of any other examples? Share them with AP Movie Critic Christy Lemire through Twitter: http://twitter.com/christylemire.



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"Hope Springs" for senior sex in Meryl Streep comedy

NEW YORK (Reuters) - In the popular 1979 film 'Kramer vs. Kramer,' Meryl Streep's character walked out on an unhappy marriage. More than 30 years on, Streep plays a middle-aged woman struggling hard to keep a sex-starved relationship together in her new movie 'Hope Springs.'

The bittersweet comedy-drama brings Streep, 63, and Tommy Lee Jones, 65, together for the first time as a couple whose marriage has so lost its spark that they give each other a new cable TV subscription for their 31st wedding anniversary.

Desperate for a shake up, Kay (Streep) persuades a reluctant Arnold (Jones) to attend a week-long counseling retreat with a couple's specialist, played by Steve Carell, the former star of TV comedy 'The Office.' All three sat down with Reuters in a joint interview.

'You get acclimated and I think people lose heart in themselves. You feel your own limits as time goes on and it's nice to have someone else to blame it on,' Streep said of Kay and Arnold's stale relationship.

Jones, better known for his dry-humored roles in the 'Men in Black' action movie franchise, said: 'People get bored. And lazy. They do look for someone to blame.'

The movie, which opened in U.S. theaters this week, mines the romance-for-the over 50s territory seen in Streep's more exuberant 2009 comedy 'It's Complicated.'

Streep, who has won three best-actress Oscars, said the movie was aimed at a discerning, baby-boomer audience that doesn't 'respond to the same sort of things that kids do. They're looking for something that used to be in films of their era, and they don't find it.'

'IT BETTER BE FUNNY!'

As Kay and Arnold try to find their way back to each other, they stumble through a series of sexual exercises often as sad as they are funny.

That includes Kay experimenting with a banana and an intimate, but awkward, movie date with her husband.

'It better be funny!' Streep quipped of the sex-act scene. 'It was uncomfortable for my knees. I have bad knees.'

Streep's Kay is an unglamorous retail employee whose husband is a cranky accountant with a regimented lifestyle.

Each day begins with Kay frying eggs and bacon for her spouse and ends when Arnold falls asleep in his lounge chair watching TV before Kay wakes him to head to their separate bedrooms.

'There's always one person who's agitated and one who says, 'It's fine,' said Streep. 'The drama is getting the one character to move the other to a place where they both discover how much they need and love each other.'

Carell says that while age is a theme of the movie, the story is universal and the struggles Kay and Arnold face could be experienced by people of any age.

'I think it's about love,' said Carell. 'It's about relationships. It's about commitment. It's about an older couple, but a good story is a good story.

'Hope Springs' has a 78-percent positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator website, with most critics praising the performances of the three lead actors.

Time magazine's Mary Pols said that it 'isn't an exciting movie, not remotely ... but I couldn't look away.'

Manohla Dargis of the New York Times was less enthusiastic, however, calling it 'an awkward cross between a domestic comedy and a marital tragedy that's laced with laughs, soggy with tears.'

(Reporting By Sabrina Ford, editing by Jill Serjeant and Philip Barbara)



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