Movie News & Gossip

- Capsule reviews of films opening this week:

"Fantastic Mr. Fox" — With George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Bill Murray leading the top-notch voice cast, director Wes Anderson has found an ideal story and medium — stop-motion animation — to bring his cockeyed vision to the cartoon world. In the hands of "Rushmore" director Anderson, Roald Dahl's children's book about a poultry-thieving fox gets loving treatment and a distinct handcrafted style that sets it apart from the sleek computer-generated imagery dominating animation today. Clooney provides the voice of a fox whose capers against three evil farmers bring the mechanized wrath of the human world down on him, his family and a menagerie of neighbors. It's lightweight fun, yet the film succeeds on all levels, presenting cute and clever varmints to charm children while offering adults merry screwball humor that slyly stretches the film's family-friendly rating. PG for action, smoking and slang humor. Running time: 88 minutes. Three stars out of four.

LOS ANGELES - A California judge granted a temporary restraining order Tuesday barring Jennifer Lopez's first husband and his manager from distributing 11 hours of home video footage the singer-actress claims includes sexual situations.

Lopez claims ex-husband Ojani Noa is exploiting her private life with the footage and the proposed film, "The J.Lo and Ojani Noa Story."

- "Women In Trouble" follows a day in the life of 10 different females, united by their uncanny ability to look fabulous in their underwear while in the throes of emotional crisis. Imagine Russ Meyer directing a Lifetime movie and you get an inkling of the film's high camp, though that still might not prepare you for a full 90-minute session with writer-director Sebastian Gutierrez's Victoria's Secret School of Philosophy.

Gutierrez models "Women In Trouble" on Pedro Almodovar's more flamboyant comedies, going so far as to thank the Spanish filmmaker in the closing credits. It's one thing, though, for the Oscar-winning Almodovar to mix lewd humor with soapy scenarios and quite another for the writer of "Snakes On a Plane," "The Big Bounce" and "Gothika" to make the attempt. We'd understand if Almodovar doesn't appreciate the shout-out.

- It's an unenviable task, making films about the war on terror for audiences that don't want to sit through dramatizations of the same bad news they get for real out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Less enviable is the task the key characters are charged with in "The Messenger": Providing word to people back home that a loved one has died in action.

BUCHAREST, Romania - Gheorghe Dinica, a Romanian actor who delighted his country by portraying characters such as villainous politicians and defiant Gypsies in dozens of plays and movies, died Tuesday. He was 75.

Dinica, famous throughout Romania, died at Floreasca Hospital in Bucharest from pneumonia with complications, said hospital spokesman Dr. Bogdan Oprita.

LOS ANGELES - Halle Berry has something else in common with fellow Oscar winners Meryl Streep and Jodie Foster: The Sherry Lansing Leadership Award.

The Hollywood Reporter says Berry will receive the honor next month at the paper's 18th annual Power 100: Women in Entertainment breakfast.

WARWICK, R.I. - A hospital did not do enough to care for the brother of James Woods when he went to the emergency room complaining of a sore throat and vomiting in 2006, a lawyer for the actor told jurors Monday at the trial of a wrongful death lawsuit.

Michael Woods died from heart disease at Kent Hospital in Warwick on July 26, 2006, after going into cardiac arrest on a gurney. He was 49.

LOS ANGELES - Jennifer Lopez won a court order Monday barring her first husband from making their sex life public — at least for a day.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant issued a temporary restraining order blocking distribution of a proposed movie, "The J.Lo and Ojani Noa Story." The order is in effect until a hearing on whether to extend it is completed. That hearing was scheduled to resume Tuesday.