Written by Anthony Sargon

This reviewer isn't a very big fan of musicals, so there was a certain degree of skepticism before watching "Les Misérables". After all, it's a three-hour movie where all the dialogue is sung. Luckily, there are a lot of things to like about "Les Mis", but its excessive length ultimately bogs down the film.

French actor Gerard Depardieu arrived in Russia on Saturday to meet with President Vladimir Putin after getting Russian citizenship to avoid paying higher taxes in France.

"Mr. Depardieu arrived in Sochi as part of a private visit. We expect him to meet Vladimir Putin tonight," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told AFP, adding that it was possible that Depardieu, 64, would receive his new passport during the meeting.

Julia Roberts and Mark Ruffalo will star in an HBO movie adaptation of "The Normal Heart," the play about the onset of the AIDS crisis in New York City in the early 1980s.

HBO said Friday that Ryan Murphy, maker of "Eat Pray Love" and the TV show "Glee," will direct the film.

Spaghetti Westerns were the talk of the town in Rome on Friday as U.S. director Quentin Tarantino arrived to receive a lifetime career prize at the premiere of his latest film "Django Unchained" -- a homage to Italian-made cowboy movies from the 1960s.

Tarantino said "Macaroni Westerns" by cult directors Sergio Corbucci and Sergio Leone were his favorites because they were so "surreal and extreme".

The 2013 Oscars show will include a tribute to the James Bond movie franchise, celebrating its 50th anniversary with the record-breaking blockbuster "Skyfall," organizers said Friday.

Over the decades a number of 007 films have been nominated for the coveted golden statuettes -- albeit generally in technical or minor categories -- and there has been talk that "Skyfall" could draw another nod or two.

A gigantic, bright yellow rubber duck floated into Sydney's Darling Harbor on Saturday as part of the Australian city's annual arts festival, a celebration where high-art meets popular entertainment.

Each January hundreds of thousands of people attend theatre, music, dance, film, talks and other events for three weeks, often braving sweltering summer temperatures and thunderstorms for their dose of culture.

Turns out Adele ruled 2012, too — and set a record while she was at it.

The British singer's "21" was the highest-selling album in the U.S. for the second consecutive year, according to 2012 sales figures released by Nielsen SoundScan on Thursday. That's a first in the SoundScan era.

British actress Helen Mirren, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Elizabeth II in "The Queen", on Thursday received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The 67-year-old Mirren saw her star unveiled in front of the Pig 'N Whistle, one of Tinseltown's historic pubs, on Hollywood Boulevard. American playwright David Mamet and U.S. director Jon Turteltaub attended the event.

The first film based on the life of legendary Apple co-founder Steve Jobs will be released in April, according to a distribution deal for "jOBS" announced on Thursday.

The "biopic" starring Ashton Kutcher as Jobs, who died in 2011, will premier later this month on the closing night of the Sundance Film Festival, according to independent distributor Open Road Films.

Twenty years after his death, Rudolf Nureyev's legacy still lights up the world of ballet as brilliantly as the flamboyant performances which once illuminated the greatest stages.

"As long as they are putting on my ballets, I will live on," Brigitte Lefevre, dance director of the Paris Opera, recalls Nureyev saying in the years before the ravages of AIDS finally claimed him, aged 54, on January 6, 1993.