Movies and music: Toronto film fest turns tuneful (AP)

TORONTO – Bruce Springsteen pumped up the volume for music at last year's Toronto International Film Festival, and this year, the cinema showcase has cranked it up to 11.

A year after Springsteen's memorable visit for a film about his album "Darkness at the Edge of Town," the Toronto festival opens Thursday with a documentary about Irish rockers U2 and continues with a musical lineup featuring films about Neil Young, Pearl Jam, Paul McCartney and 1970s songwriting staple Paul Williams.

The 11-day festival also includes "W.E.", a drama directed by pop star Madonna, and a range of other feature films and documentaries with music backdrops, from the Paris nude-dance revue portrait "Crazy Horse" to the musical road-trip comic drama "The Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best."

"There just seems to be kind of a perfect storm of films about music," said festival director Piers Handling. "Rock `n' roll probably got to a moment in history where there's enough material, and enough filmmakers who grew up with the bands are finding that material and going back to make some pretty definitive documentaries."

The list of filmmakers taking on music subjects at Toronto includes Academy Award winner Davis Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth") directing the U2 documentary "From the Sky Down," a look back at the band's 1991 album "Achtung Baby" as Bono and his band mates prepare for a live performance of the songs.

Jonathan Demme, the Oscar-winning director of "The Silence of the Lambs," has the concert film "Neil Young Journeys," his third documentary featuring the rocker, this time in a solo gig at Toronto's Massey Hall.

Cameron Crowe, who made "Jerry Maguire" and won a screenplay Oscar for "Almost Famous," comes to the festival with "Pearl Jam Twenty," a portrait of the Seattle-based band that is playing two concerts in Toronto Sunday and Monday following the film's premiere Saturday.

Albert Maysles — whose credits with his late brother, David, include the Rolling Stones documentary "Gimme Shelter" — directs "The Love We Make," a chronicle of former Beatle McCartney's memorial concert in New York City after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Gimme Shelter" and D.A. Pennebaker's Bob Dylan film "Don't Look Back" stand as monumental rock portraits of the 1960s. According to Crowe, it took nearly four decades for another film of similar stature to appear with Martin Scorsese's 2005 Dylan documentary "No Direction Home."

Crowe, who started as a rock journalist and has known Eddie Vedder and the rest of Pearl Jam almost since the band formed in 1991, said Scorsese's film rocked the world of other music-loving filmmakers, contributing to the current rush of documentaries.

"Maysles and Pennebaker made these incredibly strong rock documentaries, and really, that got left behind for years and years," Crowe said. "Now the mantle has kind of gotten picked up. It is Scorsese who did it. He took the biggest subject, Dylan, went back and explored the roots and tells a story that goes right up to the ... `Judas' moment" — the notorious fan cry of betrayal over Dylan's transition from acoustic folkie to electric rocker.

A year after "No Direction Home," Demme made the acclaimed concert film "Neil Young: Heart of Gold" and followed with 2009's "Neil Young Trunk Show." The new film, "Neil Young Journeys," intercuts between the rocker's solo performance and video of a conversation he had with Demme on a drive to the gig in a 1956 Ford Crown Victoria from Omemee, Young's north Ontario hometown.

"The real challenge in doing a performance film is, how do you make a film that has its own identity and isn't a lot like other performance films we've seen?" said Demme, whose credits include the 1984 Talking Heads concert flick "Stop Making Sense."

"If a performance of a concert is one certain kind of journey, we take that automobile journey from Omemee into the big city, so you see these two journeys reflecting who Neil is in different ways. It really gave us something that works well in the rhythm of the movie and helps make it completely different."

Also in the Toronto lineup is director Stephen Kessler's "Paul Williams Still Alive," a documentary about the diminutive musician and actor who was ubiquitous in the 1970s, when his songwriting credits included the Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun," the Oscar-winning "Evergreen" from "A Star Is Born" and the Oscar-nominated "The Rainbow Connection" from "The Muppet Movie."

The festival also offers fictional films with musical themes, among them Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's "Chicken with Plums," whose lead character tumbles into a hallucinatory spiritual journey after his cherished violin is broken; Sheldon Larry's "Leave It on the Floor," a musical set among LA's underground ballroom dance subculture; and Bibo Bergeron's animated musical fantasy "A Monster in Paris."

Ryan O'Nan wrote, directed and stars in the Toronto premiere "The Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best," in which he plays a singer-songwriter reluctantly drawn into a cross-country tour with a new band mate (Michael Weston) who plays nothing but Fisher-Price-style children's instruments.

O'Nan, who starred with America Ferrera in last year's Sundance Film Festival premiere "The Dry Land," wrote most of the songs in "Brooklyn Brothers" and toured as a musician for years before becoming an actor.

He had long thought about making a music-themed film, and his desire was reinforced a few years ago when he went to see an earlier music documentary from director Guggenheim, "It Might Get Loud," the guitar dream-team portrait featuring U2's The Edge, Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and Jack White of the White Stripes.

"When the documentary was done, the whole crowd stood up and cheered. I was looking around like, who are they cheering to? There's nothing there," O'Nan said. "There's just something about music, man, that links people in this unspoken way that nothing else really can. They were literally cheering to a blank screen."

___

Online:

Toronto International Film Festival: http://tiff.net

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Movies and music: Toronto film fest turns tuneful (AP)

TORONTO – Bruce Springsteen pumped up the volume for music at last year's Toronto International Film Festival, and this year, the cinema showcase has cranked it up to 11.

A year after Springsteen's memorable visit for a film about his album "Darkness at the Edge of Town," the Toronto festival opens Thursday with a documentary about Irish rockers U2 and continues with a musical lineup featuring films about Neil Young, Pearl Jam, Paul McCartney and 1970s songwriting staple Paul Williams.

The 11-day festival also includes "W.E.", a drama directed by pop star Madonna, and a range of other feature films and documentaries with music backdrops, from the Paris nude-dance revue portrait "Crazy Horse" to the musical road-trip comic drama "The Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best."

"There just seems to be kind of a perfect storm of films about music," said festival director Piers Handling. "Rock `n' roll probably got to a moment in history where there's enough material, and enough filmmakers who grew up with the bands are finding that material and going back to make some pretty definitive documentaries."

The list of filmmakers taking on music subjects at Toronto includes Academy Award winner Davis Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth") directing the U2 documentary "From the Sky Down," a look back at the band's 1991 album "Achtung Baby" as Bono and his band mates prepare for a live performance of the songs.

Jonathan Demme, the Oscar-winning director of "The Silence of the Lambs," has the concert film "Neil Young Journeys," his third documentary featuring the rocker, this time in a solo gig at Toronto's Massey Hall.

Cameron Crowe, who made "Jerry Maguire" and won a screenplay Oscar for "Almost Famous," comes to the festival with "Pearl Jam Twenty," a portrait of the Seattle-based band that is playing two concerts in Toronto Sunday and Monday following the film's premiere Saturday.

Albert Maysles — whose credits with his late brother, David, include the Rolling Stones documentary "Gimme Shelter" — directs "The Love We Make," a chronicle of former Beatle McCartney's memorial concert in New York City after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Gimme Shelter" and D.A. Pennebaker's Bob Dylan film "Don't Look Back" stand as monumental rock portraits of the 1960s. According to Crowe, it took nearly four decades for another film of similar stature to appear with Martin Scorsese's 2005 Dylan documentary "No Direction Home."

Crowe, who started as a rock journalist and has known Eddie Vedder and the rest of Pearl Jam almost since the band formed in 1991, said Scorsese's film rocked the world of other music-loving filmmakers, contributing to the current rush of documentaries.

"Maysles and Pennebaker made these incredibly strong rock documentaries, and really, that got left behind for years and years," Crowe said. "Now the mantle has kind of gotten picked up. It is Scorsese who did it. He took the biggest subject, Dylan, went back and explored the roots and tells a story that goes right up to the ... `Judas' moment" — the notorious fan cry of betrayal over Dylan's transition from acoustic folkie to electric rocker.

A year after "No Direction Home," Demme made the acclaimed concert film "Neil Young: Heart of Gold" and followed with 2009's "Neil Young Trunk Show." The new film, "Neil Young Journeys," intercuts between the rocker's solo performance and video of a conversation he had with Demme on a drive to the gig in a 1956 Ford Crown Victoria from Omemee, Young's north Ontario hometown.

"The real challenge in doing a performance film is, how do you make a film that has its own identity and isn't a lot like other performance films we've seen?" said Demme, whose credits include the 1984 Talking Heads concert flick "Stop Making Sense."

"If a performance of a concert is one certain kind of journey, we take that automobile journey from Omemee into the big city, so you see these two journeys reflecting who Neil is in different ways. It really gave us something that works well in the rhythm of the movie and helps make it completely different."

Also in the Toronto lineup is director Stephen Kessler's "Paul Williams Still Alive," a documentary about the diminutive musician and actor who was ubiquitous in the 1970s, when his songwriting credits included the Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun," the Oscar-winning "Evergreen" from "A Star Is Born" and the Oscar-nominated "The Rainbow Connection" from "The Muppet Movie."

The festival also offers fictional films with musical themes, among them Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's "Chicken with Plums," whose lead character tumbles into a hallucinatory spiritual journey after his cherished violin is broken; Sheldon Larry's "Leave It on the Floor," a musical set among LA's underground ballroom dance subculture; and Bibo Bergeron's animated musical fantasy "A Monster in Paris."

Ryan O'Nan wrote, directed and stars in the Toronto premiere "The Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best," in which he plays a singer-songwriter reluctantly drawn into a cross-country tour with a new band mate (Michael Weston) who plays nothing but Fisher-Price-style children's instruments.

O'Nan, who starred with America Ferrera in last year's Sundance Film Festival premiere "The Dry Land," wrote most of the songs in "Brooklyn Brothers" and toured as a musician for years before becoming an actor.

He had long thought about making a music-themed film, and his desire was reinforced a few years ago when he went to see an earlier music documentary from director Guggenheim, "It Might Get Loud," the guitar dream-team portrait featuring U2's The Edge, Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Plant and Jack White of the White Stripes.

"When the documentary was done, the whole crowd stood up and cheered. I was looking around like, who are they cheering to? There's nothing there," O'Nan said. "There's just something about music, man, that links people in this unspoken way that nothing else really can. They were literally cheering to a blank screen."

___

Online:

Toronto International Film Festival: http://tiff.net

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California Supreme Court turns down Phil Spector appeal (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The California Supreme Court declined on Wednesday to review the 2009 murder conviction of music producer Phil Spector, turning down an appeal that had been filed by his attorneys.

Spector's lawyers had asked the state's highest court to take another look at the case after a three-justice panel from the California 2nd District Court of Appeal earlier this year upheld his conviction of second-degree murder in the 2003 shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson.

The killing occurred at Spector's suburban Los Angeles mansion, which was called the "Pyrenees Castle."

Spector, 71, is famous for his signature "wall of sound" recording technique, and he worked with the Beatles, the Ronettes and the Ramones in the 1960s and 1970s.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

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Danny Aiello turns his grief into stage fuel (AP)

NEW YORK – These days, Danny Aiello is pouring his personal tragedy into a national one.

The Academy Award-nominated actor, still reeling from the death last year of his 53-year-old son from pancreatic cancer, has found solace in the strangest of places: Sept. 11, 2001.

The star of such films as "The Godfather, Part II" and "Do the Right Thing" is currently appearing off-Broadway in "The Shoemaker," an emotionally charged play about loss and grieving set on 9/11.

"I've been looking for distractions," the 78-year-old actor says during an interview where he showed flashes of both his tenderness and his frustration. "I've found a vehicle that permits me the opportunity to vent my anger."

His son, stuntman and stunt coordinator Danny Aiello III, died in May 2010. His parents are still shocked by how quickly the disease took him. "My wife won't get out of bed," Aiello says.

In the play, written by Susan Charlotte, Aiello plays an Italian-Jewish cobbler who worries about a young World Trade finance worker who became his customer when she brought in a pair of high heels to be mended.

The shoemaker feels certain she must have just died at ground zero, a loss that reminds him of his strained relationship with his absent daughter, the memory of his long-deceased father and the Holocaust.

It is a wrenching performance, leaving Aiello drenched in his own tears. He says he draws on his memories of the terrible day when he saw the twin towers fall and from the staggering loss of his son.

"I don't know why it happens. I don't bring him up, but he comes up and I'm crying. I'm not fake crying. The tears are coming out," he says. "I don't draw on it. It's just there."

Directed by Antony Marsellis, the two-act drama is being presented at the Acorn Theatre in Midtown, with Alma Cuervo and Lucy DeVito — daughter of Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman — in the supporting cast.

Aiello first appeared in the original one-act version of "The Shoemaker" in 2001, which became the movie "A Broken Sole," featuring Margaret Colin and Judith Light. He did the one-act version again last year in New York and encouraged Charlotte to expand it into two acts.

Aiello says his performance is influenced by "Network," the 1976 movie written by Paddy Chayefsky, in which a fictional news anchor, Howard Beale, decides that he is "mad as hell," and that he is "not going to take it anymore!"

"I want to express — not necessarily in an articulate way, which almost sanitizes the event — but to scream at the top of my lungs, `I'm mad and I'm not going to take it anymore,'" he says.

Aiello would love to take the play to Broadway and hopes actors across the globe will play the shoemaker, including his friend Harvey Keitel. "An actor's got to be crazy not to want to play this part," he says.

Charlotte isn't sure just anyone can play it, though, citing Aiello's skills at conveying both tremendous power and gut-wrenching vulnerability, evident in films including "The Purple Rose of Cairo" and "Moonstruck."

"There's nobody else who could hit every note of that character — no body that I can think of," Charlotte says. "From the vulnerability, to the toughness, to the humor. I can't think of an actor who can go to every note and make it so believable."

After "The Shoemaker," Aiello plans to escape into music: He's working on a one-man musical about the gangster Al Capone and has a new CD called "Bridges" coming out in which he teams up with the rapper Hasan to give old songs a hip-hop flavor.

"I hate rap," he says, laughing. "I want to introduce great classic standards to kids who've never heard of them. How do you do it? You attach it to something that's happening now."

___

Online:

http://theatrerow.org

http://www.dannyaiello.com

http://www.bridgesalbum.com/p/danny-aiello.html

___

Mark Kennedy can be reached at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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Beatles barber turns shop into tribute to Fab Four (Reuters)

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Beatles fan Gerardo Weiss ran a typical Buenos Aires barber shop until he had a dream that the Fab Four dropped in for a haircut.

Seven years later, Weiss has made Beatles-inspired cuts his specialty.

"The dream got etched on my memory," he said at the modest salon, the walls plastered with photos of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

"I decided to get rid of the pictures these places usually have and just put up photos of The Beatles ... so people could see them and ask for their haircuts," he said.

One picture shows Lennon cutting someone's hair, another is of Harrison with curly locks down to his shoulders. It is the stuff of inspiration for Weiss.

"My favorite Beatles' haircut is the one Paul McCartney had in '74, when he was doing the Band on the Run tour ... it was short on the sides and longer at the back," said Weiss, whose eight-year-old son is called Lennon.

"When my wife got pregnant I prayed to God for a son, so I could pay homage to John," he said as "Hey Jude," with Lennon strumming on a guitar, played in the background.

It was 40 years ago that the hairdresser first heard a Beatles record, a moment he recalls with almost religious fervor. It was "Love Me Do," the Beatles' first single, that started his life-long love affair with the British band.

At first, the salon's Beatles-inspired makeover was a little too radical for many locals in the working-class city neighborhood of Flores.

Weiss said it was a struggle to convince customers a Beatles' haircut is as cool today as it was when the band from Liverpool revolutionized popular music in the 1960s.

But word spread and people from outside Buenos Aires and even abroad began trickling, joining more adventurous locals.

"I've told some of my friends, the ones who are Beatles fans, to come and they liked the results," Mario Genua, a 22-year-old petrol station attendant, said as Weiss styled his hair into a "John 1964" -- fluffy on top and at the sides.

"They were very different (and) they're still fashionable," he said.

Weiss has no plans to move his business to bigger premises in a trendy neighborhood or to tap into the city's booming tourist trade.

His dream is to keep Beatles' cuts in style.

"I'll carry The Beatles in my soul, my spirit, my blood for the rest of my life," he said. "They left a mark on me and I'm really happy to be able to do what I do. I even get paid for it."

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Out of 'Office,' Carell turns focus to movies (AP)

NEW YORK – Steve Carell is not going through Michael Scott withdrawal — at least not yet.

"I don't sit at home and think of `that's what she said' jokes and wish that I could do them one more time," says the actor, laughing. "But it's only been a few months, too, so I haven't really had any time. All of that is still fresh to me."

Carell's sendoff from "The Office" (for which he received a parting Emmy nomination) is still fresh in many viewers' minds, too. The emotional hubbub over his exit after seven seasons caught Carell by surprise. He was flattered, he says, but, with typical humility, considers it "just an actor leaving a show."

He moved on to spend more time with his family (wife and former "Saturday Night Live" cast member Nancy Ellen Walls and their two children) and to expand the movie career he had previously squeezed into summer breaks from shooting the hit NBC comedy.

The first glimpse of Carell's post-"Office" days is "Crazy Stupid Love," an ensemble romantic comedy in which he stars and that he produced.

"It is sort of a new phase," Carell said in a recent interview at the Ritz-Carlton. "We'll see how it goes. It's just, just started. You're witnessing day one of the new phase. So far so good."

"Crazy Stupid Love" mirrors the type of movie Carell wants to pursue, particularly its blend of comedy and drama, and its focus on character-based realism.

Carell plays a suburban father who, when his wife (Julianne Moore) cheats on him and they separate, remakes himself as a lady's man with the help of a suave pick-up artist (Ryan Gosling). The film also examines love stories in different generations (Emma Stone pairs with Gosling).

Glenn Ficarra, who directed with John Requa, calls the role a "transitional piece" for Carell that shows he can smoothly range into more serious material.

"Steve's a writer, so he's always thinking about scenes in a slightly different way, not just as an actor," says Ficarra. "Like `40-Year-Old Virgin' is a very kind of crass concept, but it's a very heartfelt movie. Steve always approaches everything he does trying to come from a real place, as opposed to a wacky place. So I think it's a natural extension to move toward dramatic stuff, because you're just dealing with reality."

After memorably funny roles in "Bruce Almighty" and "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy," 2005's "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" (which Carell co-wrote with Judd Apatow) catapulted Carell's movie career. The former Second City stand-out and "Daily Show" correspondent responded with a steady string of movies.

He has vacillated among blockbusters ("Get Smart," "Despicable Me"), box-office flops ("Evan Almighty") and absurdist comedies ("Dinner for Schmucks"). But he's shown a respectable inclination for adult-minded comedies such as "Dan in Real Life," "Date Night" and "Little Miss Sunshine."

But in the constant back-and-forth between movies and the mockumentary-style "Office," some TV habits were hard to break.

"The one thing that's hard getting away from is looking into the camera," says Carell, laughing. "This happened all the way through `The Office,' when I would go off and do a movie. For the first week, I would continually look into the lens of the movie camera. I'd stop myself and go, `What the hell am I doing? This isn't the documentary.'"

Directors have often praised Carell's ability to improvise on the spot, performing repeated alternative takes in comedies to twist a scene in different directions. An admirer of great actors such as Alan Arkin, Jack Lemmon and Peter Sellers, Carell has always favored character-based comedy and detests "jokey jokes."

"In real life, people don't walk around telling jokes to each other," Carell says. "That, to me, is not what's most funny about real life. Real human situations and responses are what really make me laugh. When you hear a joke — and it depends on the context and the movie — you feel like you're being set up that way and manipulated. I never like that in a movie. I would much rather buy into a character and laugh at what they're doing as opposed to how funny they're trying to be."

Julianne Moore, who has won Oscar nominations for roles in such dramas as "Far From Heaven," "The Hours" and "Boogie Nights," believes Carell's approach works, regardless of genre.

"Steve has got a kinetic acuity like nothing I've ever seen," she says. "It is effortless — or seemingly effortless. ... He's great at connecting and noticing things that are going on around him."

"Crazy Stupid Love" is the first film produced by Carell's production company, Carousel Productions. As a producer, he picked the directors, contributed to casting and had input on keeping the tone of the movie as realistic as possible — using "treacle cutters," he says, to weed out sentimentality. In one low-point scene for his character, his wife leaves and it begins to rain. Carell improvised a self-conscious line: "Ah, what a cliche."

Carell is producing a documentary on the last six decades of comedy, to be hosted by David Steinberg. Upcoming acting jobs include co-starring with Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones in "Great Hope Springs," another tale of marriage woes. He will also play a magician in "Burt Wonderstone," and he recently shot the independent romantic comedy "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World" with Keira Knightley.

Carell, who hasn't been credited as a writer since a few 2006-2007 "Office" episodes, plans to write more now that he has time. He knows wistful emotions might kick in when, in a few weeks, "The Office" returns to production for its fall season without him, but thus far, he's relishing his new period — particularly his time with his kids.

"It's been great," he says with a smile. "It's been exactly what I hoped it would be."

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Hasselhoff turns porn star for "Sons of Anarchy" (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap) – Is the world ready for David Hasselhoff, porn star?

The former "Baywatch" star will have a guest-starring turn on the upcoming season of the hit biker series "Sons of Anarchy," a representative for the actor confirms to TheWrap. The Hoff's role? He'll be playing Dondo, a former XXX actor who's segued into producing skin flicks.

Hasselhoff, who vacated his judge's chair on "America's Got Talent" early last year, has been keeping busy of late with a reprisal of his role as Dr. William "Snapper" Foster on "The Young and the Restless."

There's also the star-studded, sure-to-be-epic horror film "Piranha 3DD," which is slated for release on November 23 and will see Hasselhoff share the screen with such talents as Gary Busey, Christopher Lloyd and Katrina Bowden.

Which is to say nothing of his appearing in the occasional iced-treat promotional video.

The bad news? An FX spokesperson told TheWrap that, for the time being, Hasselhoff's guest-starring turn is just a one-episode deal. Fingers crossed, people...

News of Hasselhoff's "Sons of Anarchy" stint was first reported by TV Guide.

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Myanmar's Suu Kyi turns 66 in freedom (AFP)

YANGON (AFP) – Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi called for peace as she celebrated her 66th birthday on Sunday, her first as a free woman for almost a decade.

She was released from seven years of house arrest in November, having spent much of the past two decades as a prisoner in her own home, with the military regime never accepting her landslide election win in 1990.

"My birthday wish is for peace for all of us. I alone cannot get this peace, nor my party. We all have to work for it," she told about 1,000 well-wishers at her National League for Democracy (NLD) party headquarters.

"I would like to ask everyone to help by co-operating for peace in our country," she added, after cutting her birthday cake.

Her comments came after recent clashes between ethnic minority rebels and government troops in the far north of Myanmar caused unknown numbers of civilians to flee.

In previous years, Suu Kyi's supporters across the globe used her anniversary to reiterate calls for her release.

For her first free birthday in nine years, the Nobel Peace Laureate went to Yangon airport to meet the younger of her two sons, British national Kim Aris, who travelled to be with his mother for the occasion.

"I'm very glad," she told reporters after being greeted by Aris with a kiss. She also thanked onlookers who wished her a happy birthday.

Aris, 33, was reunited with his mother on a visit to Yangon in November soon after her release, after a decade of separation.

After a family gathering at her lakeside home, Suu Kyi celebrated with supporters and diplomats at the NLD offices, where doves, sparrows and colourful balloons were released.

The first polls since 1990 were held on November 7, a few days before her release, but they were boycotted by the NLD, which said the rules were unfair.

Suu Kyi was excluded from the vote, won by the army's political proxies amid allegations of cheating and intimidation.

Her release and a new nominally-civilian government have sparked cautious hopes of gradual reform and debate over whether to soften Western economic sanctions against Myanmar.

Suu Kyi herself has said sanctions should remain in place until there is real democratic reform, and the European Union, when it opted to maintain them in April, expressed hopes of "a greater civilian character of the government".

But the EU did lift for a year a visa ban and asset freeze on certain government members, including the foreign minister.

A high-level EU team is heading to Myanmar for exploratory talks with the new government, possibly arriving this weekend, a senior EU diplomat said on Friday. The NLD said Suu Kyi was due to meet them on Tuesday.

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UK Queen's feisty husband Prince Philip turns 90 (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain's Prince Philip, renowned for his blunt talk and verbal gaffes, turns 90 on Friday, spending the day as he has much of life performing official duties in his role as Queen Elizabeth's husband.

The son of the exiled Prince Andrew of Greece, Philip married the queen in 1947 and is now the longest-serving consort and oldest-serving spouse of any British monarch.

Despite being a near constant companion at the queen's side during her long reign, the still sprightly prince has rarely sought the limelight himself.

His birthday will be in keeping with that low-key style; he will hold a reception to mark the centenary of a charity for the deaf and in the evening he will chair a conference for senior British military figures followed by a dinner.

"It's a normal working day for him. There's no celebration as such," his spokeswoman said.

The only formal event to mark his birthday will take place on Sunday with a special service at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, one of the queen's residences, west of London, which will be attended by most of the royal family.

Philip, the oldest living great-great-grandchild of Britain's Queen Victoria, was born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark on the Greek island of Corfu in 1921.

His family was forced into exile when Philip was 18 months old and he came to England as a child, later becoming a naturalized British citizen.

He served in the Royal Navy during World War Two, taking part in the Allied landings in Sicily and was in Tokyo Bay when the Japanese surrendered in 1945.

He first met his future wife when she was 13 and visited the naval college where he was a cadet, and following the war they got engaged, when he was given the title the Duke of Edinburgh.

"STRENGTH AND STAY"

As the queen's husband he has no clear constitutional role, although he does accompany his wife on most of her official engagements in Britain and all her foreign trips.

"He has, quite simply, been my strength and stay all these years," the queen said in a personal tribute to Philip during a speech to mark their 50th wedding anniversary in 1997.

"I, and his whole family, and this and many other countries, owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim, or we shall ever know."

His most notable achievement is the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme for young people, which is estimated to have attracted about seven million participants from 132 countries since 1956.

In an interview with the BBC to be aired on Thursday, Philip himself said he took no credit for the scheme, and gave a typically blunt answer when asked if he thought he had been successful in his royal role.

"I couldn't care less," he said, adding that he would be winding down his official engagements. "Who cares what I think about it, I mean it's ridiculous."

It is for such gruff remarks, and unguarded comments and gaffes that he is best-known, with his sayings even being published in several books.

He once told British students in China: "If you stay here much longer, you'll be slitty-eyed" and asked Aborigines in Australia if they still threw spears at each other.

Prime Minister David Cameron said Philip had always done things "in his own inimitable way, with a down-to-earth, no-nonsense approach that the British people I believe find endearing."

While Philip has spent his life in the shadow of the queen, there is one place where he outshines his wife -- on the south Pacific island of Tanna in the Vanuatu group, where the locals worship him as a god.

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

(To read more about our entertainment news, visit our blog "Fan Fare" online at http://blogs.reuters.com/fanfare/)

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Prince Philip soldiers on as he turns 90 (AFP)

LONDON (AFP) – Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, turns 90 on Friday but will mark the occasion with little fanfare, in keeping with his famously no-nonsense style.

The longest-serving consort in British history would have been forgiven a day off to celebrate, but the gruff patriarch did not want a fuss and will spend the day at work, hosting a reception and a colonels' conference.

Sprightly and remarkably fit, the Duke of Edinburgh shows few signs of slowing up in his old age and is as quick as ever when making quips -- some of which have famously landed him in trouble.

Prime Minister David Cameron paid tribute to him in parliament on Wednesday, saying he would keep his remarks brief as, in the prince's words, "the mind cannot absorb what the backside cannot endure."

Prince Philip has been named Oldie of the Year by The Oldie magazine, but the peppery former naval officer is not impressed.

"Well, so what? You just get old!" he told ITV television in an interview to mark his birthday.

Forthright and impatient, the duke has spent his entire life getting on with it, and he gave little away about his feelings on turning 90.

Asked if there was anything he would have done differently, he said: "I'd rather not have made the mistakes that I did make; I'm not going to tell you what they are!"

Prince Philippos of Greece and Denmark, a nephew of Greek king Constantine I, was born on a kitchen table on Corfu on June 10, 1921.

After a turbulent childhood, Lieutenant Mountbatten, as he became, married in 1947, but his stellar progress in the British Royal Navy was halted when his wife became queen in 1952 and he was forced to abandon his career.

He told ITV it was "disappointing", but "being married to the queen, it seemed to me that my first duty was to serve her in the best way I could."

Since then he has carved out his own role supporting the queen, accompanying her on visits and jollying people up with his off-the-cuff remarks, which have sometimes been near the knuckle.

"You managed not to get eaten, then?" he told a British student who had trekked in Papua New Guinea, in 1998.

He is patron of some 800 organisations, and has carved a niche for himself in the fields of conservation, design and developing life skills among youngsters.

The duke was on form during the queen's historic first state visit to Ireland last month, eyeing up a freshly-poured pint of Guinness, despite it being only half an hour after breakfast.

Cameron said the duke had been "a constant companion and a source of rock-solid strength" to Queen Elizabeth.

"He has served us, the British people, with an unshakeable sense of duty."

Cameron said Britons found the duke's "inimitable" down-to-earth style "endearing" and the country owed him a "deserved debt of gratitude."

Opposition leader Ed Miliband said the duke was a "prince amongst consorts, but a king amongst characters.

"His unique turn of phrase has been a much loved feature of British public life."

MP Nicholas Soames, a grandson of wartime prime minister Winston Churchill and a friend of the prince for 50 years, said he "refreshingly does not suffer fools gladly -- as I know to my cost."

Buckingham Palace has released 90 facts about the duke to mark his birthday, including that he drives a liquid petroleum gas taxi around London and designed the Inter-University Tiddlywinks Championship trophy.

The formal marking of his 90th birthday will be a service of thanksgiving at Saint George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, attended by the royal family, with a reception to follow.

The no-frills celebrations are very much in keeping with his character.

As a youth, the prince was "very boyish, but great fun, always great fun and very kind," his cousin Lady Myra Butter said.

"He hasn't really changed much as a person at all, I don't think.

"He just gets on with it. That's his motto. Just get on with it."

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Supreme Court turns down Snipes' appeal (AP)

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court has turned away the latest attempt by actor Wesley Snipes to get his conviction and prison sentence on tax charges overturned.

The high court refused Monday to hear an appeal from Snipes, convicted in 2008 on three misdemeanor counts of willful failure to file income tax returns.

Snipes started a three-year term in a federal minimum security prison in December. He has appeared in dozens of films, from "White Men Can't Jump" and "Demolition Man" in the early 1990s to the blockbuster Blade trilogy.

Snipes wanted his trial held in New York City, where he says he lived, but the government brought charges against him in Florida, where Snipes held a driver's license. The lower courts refused to let him have an evidentiary hearing on this issue.

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Actress, music icon Cher turns 65 (AFP)

NEW YORK (AFP) – Music icon Cher, the rare celebrity to have earned both Oscar and Grammy glory, turns 65 this week with undiminished adoration from millions of fans around the world.

Before Madonna or Lady Gaga, there was Cher, a forerunner of the current crop of musical divas, with her fondness for head dresses, sequined gowns and a fearlessness of harnessing her sexuality as part of her carefully crafted public persona.

Throughout her career, Cher has sold more than 100 million records, but she said in a recent interview that her most recent hit -- last year's "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me" -- has particular poignancy at this moment in her career.

"That song, for me, had a lot of meaning," she told a California newspaper last year, saying that it reminded her that "I have to kind of move over."

"Not that I'm doing it gracefully, because you'd have to pull me over kicking and screaming," she said in her interview with the Fresno Bee.

Cher is a singular character on the American cultural landscape for her longevity and her ability to reinvent her career over a career spanning six decades.

Even the pop stars of the moment, not known generally to show deference to their musical elders, pay homage to Cher.

"How could you not learn from Cher with her work ethic and the way she commands attention when she walks into a room, but exudes such peaceful tranquility and love for everyone?" said singer Christina Aguilera.

Cher was born Cherilyn Sarkisian on May 20, 1946 to an Armenian truck driver who abandoned the family when she was just two-years-old, and a mother who cobbled together a living as a sometime actress model.

A 16-year-old high school dropout with hip-length raven hair and striking but atypical good looks, Cher met husband-to-be musician Sonny Bono at a Sunset Boulevard coffee shop.

At barely 18, she teamed up with him to record "I Got You, Babe," the first of many massive hits.

The chart-topping 1965 tune became the duo's biggest single and their signature song, and was on Rolling Stone's magazine list of the 500 Greatest Songs of all time.

The couple married in 1969. Then came a daughter, Chastity, and their groundbreaking television variety act, "The Sonny and Cher Show," one of the most popular programs of the early 1970s.

Throughout early stardom, Cher was a style icon, equally as comfortable in bell bottom jeans and navel-baring cropped tops, she was in the floor-length form-fitting gowns that were staple attire on her show.

Her marriage to Sonny ended in 1974. A second marriage, to musician Greg Allman of the Allman Brothers Band, produced one son, Elijah Blue Allman. That union fell apart after barely two years.

But, the queen of reinvention, Cher launched her acting career around that time, earning lead role honors opposite Meryl Streep when they made "Silkwood" in 1983.

A few years later, she was awarded an Oscar for her starring role in the hit 1987 romantic comedy "Moonstruck" opposite Nicolas Cage.

Her on-again, off-again music career took off again at the end of the 1980s, when she had one of her biggest solo hits, "If I could Turn Back Time."

The tune might also have been describing her physical appearance, given her acknowledged penchant for plastic surgery, or her numerous farewell tours and comeback concerts.

Recently Cher has been in the news because of Chastity -- now known as Chaz -- who is now living as a transgendered man.

A new film, "Becoming Chaz" which debuted this year at the Sundance Film Festival, chronicles the medical and social transition of Chaz from female to male.

Over the years, in addition to her music and screen career, Cher has starred in a Las Vegas live show, with nearly 200 appearances.

Her latest musical hit was last year's "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me," heard in the film "Burlesque," which also marked her first big screen appearance in more than a decade -- the latest being the 1999 film "Tea with Mussolini".

In "Burlesque," she plays as a down-on-her-luck nightclub owner, opposite Aguilera, who waxed rhapsodic about her co-star.

"She's been there and done everything, before any of us," the singer said.

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'Barefoot' Backfire: Make-a-Wish Kid Turns Ina Down

It's the PR disaster heard 'round the world. The tables have turned on Food Network star Ina Garten, the 'Barefoot Contessa,' who got caught red-handed last week turning down a Make-a-Wish kid. On Monday, she called the family of Enzo Pereda, a 6-year-old cancer patient, to say she had reconsidered, but now TMZ is reporting they turned her down.

"This has been a disaster for Ina," a foodie insider tells me. "She buried her head in the sand for days hoping the bad publicity would go over, but it didn't."
To a casual observer -- as well as the scores of new ex-fans -- Ina's change of heart on Monday appeared to be possibly driven more by the desire to nip a festering scandal in the bud, rather than to make a sick little boy's dream come true.

"She was worried her initial reaction was hurting her business," my source contends.

Ina had twice blew off meeting Enzo after the wonderful Make-A-Wish Foundation approached her before being shamed into finally contacting his family, independently of the foundation.

"Chefs think they are the new rock stars. And no one has a higher opinion of themselves than Ina," an insider tells me. "She forgot a long time ago that it is the fans who make you who you are. You can be the most talented chef in the world, but if people don't like you, they won't watch your shows or buy your cookbooks."

Ultimately, Enzo's family decided to put an end to the madness and move on from Ina. "I don't want to put my son through all these emotions. We're better off just leaving everything the way it is," dad Adrian told TMZ.

It's great to see that the Pereda family holds no bad feelings and is already getting excited to have Enzo's other wish come true ... to swim with dolphins.



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