Al Pacino's movie "Wilde Salome" is a complicated examination of Oscar Wilde's once-forbidden play about illicit love and revenge.

But his inspiration was simple: Jessica Chastain.

From the red carpet to the big screen, women are dazzling at this year's Venice Film Festival with the key roles going to female stars who amaze with glamour and sheer chutzpah.

Pop diva Madonna crazed the island when she sauntered down the celebrity runway in a striking Vionnet dress with red butterfly motif and long sweeping train -- matched with large red-rimmed sunglasses and a dynamite red lipstick.

Hollywood filmmakers are joining forces with Chinese companies to gain a foothold in the Asian nation's huge movie market -- but obstacles remain in the form of commercial restrictions and censorship.

China is by far the world's fastest-growing cinema market and, despite official barriers to entry and limits on artistic freedom, the world's second-largest economy is proving a huge draw for foreign filmmakers.

Messages of good health and positive self-esteem for girls are not hard to come by in kid lit, so what's the deal with all the attention for a not-yet-published rhyming picture book about an obese, unhappy 14-year-old named Maggie?

The title, for starters: "Maggie Goes on a Diet."

For many people, the images of commercial airliners hitting the Twin Towers, and of Manhattan engulfed in a huge dust cloud as they collapsed, looked like a Hollywood apocalypse-style movie.

But despite that -- or maybe in part because of it -- 9/11 has not generated as large a number of movies as previous epochal events such as World War II or Vietnam.

When Chaz Bono takes to the floor on American television's "Dancing with the Stars" later this month, he won't be lacking for fans -- or detractors.

The 42-year-old LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) activist formerly known as Chastity Bono is the first transgender contestant on the U.S. version of the globally popular reality television series.

It's a girl for singer Melanie Brown and her husband, Stephen Belafonte.

An e-mail from a representative for the former Spice Girl says the couple "welcomed their new baby girl in Los Angeles" on Thursday night.

Actress Monica Bellucci says her decision to appear nude in her latest film "That Summer" was an act of generosity.

Bellucci said the request came at a "fragile moment as a woman," just a month and a half after giving birth. Bellucci said that when she accepts a role, she also trusts the director. She said she felt protected by director Philippe Garrel during the filming of the scene.

Veteran action star Jet Li and action director Tony Ching are expanding their repertoire into the children's fairy tale, but with an adult audience also in mind.

Their latest movie "The Sorcerer and the White Snake" made its world premier out of competition at the Venice Film Festival on Friday.

A mother is lecturing her 23-year-old daughter about her love life, flailing a kitchen knife above her head for emphasis.

Mom's point: She'd like her immigrant daughter, from the former Soviet republic of Moldova, to marry a man with similar roots, keeping the family's East European Jewish tradition.