Renowned Hong Kong director John Woo is to get a lifetime achievement award at the 2010 Venice Film Festival. The film maker made his name with Chinese language films like 'Hard Boiled' and 'The Killer', before moving to Hollywood to make well received English language flicks such as 'Face/Off' and 'Broken Arrow'.

More recently he made a return to China to make historical epic 'Red Cliff', and is planning a movie about the 'Flying Tigers', US fighter pilots who defended China against Japanese invaders during WW2.

The Festival's organisers called Woo "an innovator of the contemporary language of cinema", and added that he is "considered a master who has changed the language of contemporary film for generations of filmmakers".

They continue: "The acknowledgement recognises a filmmaker who in recent decades, with his revolutionary conception of staging and editing, has renewed action movies to the core, introducing an extreme stylisation close to visual art, both in Asia and in Hollywood".

Four new works by Banksy have appeared alongside the Regent's Canal in Camden, apparently to coincide with the end of the Copenhagen climate conference.

One of the murals near the Oval Bridge shows the words "I don't believe in global warming", the letters slipping below the surface of the water. There is also a picture of a boy fishing, who is using his rod to pull the name Banksy out of the canal, an image of rat clad in a top hat and suit, and a mural of a man pasting up wallpaper that looks like graffiti.

A court in the US has rejected attempts by lawyers for Roman Polanski to have charges against their client dropped on the grounds of alleged misconduct in the case.

As previously reported, Polanksi pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor back in 1977, as part of a plea deal with a now deceased Los Angeles judge, but when the judge reneged on the deal, Polanski fled to Europe, where he has been ever since.  The case hit the news again earlier this year when the film director was apprehended in Switzerland, where he was ultimately placed under house arrest until the Swiss government could decide whether he should be extradited or not.

Polanski's legal team argue that the aforementioned judge engaged in "backroom manipulations" during his handling of the case, and therefore believe the case should be dropped. Despite The California 2nd District Court of Appeal's dismissal of the appeal, they have recognised that the allegations need to be examined. Announcing the decision via their website, the justices stated that they are "deeply concerned that these allegations of misconduct have not been addressed by a court", and add: "Polanski's allegations urgently require full exploration and then, if indicated, curative action for the abuses alleged here".

The Theatre Royal Bath's production of 'Mrs Warren's Profession', which stars Felicity Kendal, is to transfer to the West End's Comedy Theatre in the spring. The George Bernard Shaw play has been directed by Michael Rudman, and stars Lucy Briggs-Owen, Mark Tandy, David Yelland, Eric Carte and Max Bennett, as well as the aforementioned Kendal. It opens on 16 March for a fourteen week run.

Tributes have been flooding in for Brittany Murphy, who died yesterday at the age of 32, after collapsing at her home in Los Angeles. Coroners have said that the actress, probably most famous for her appearances in 'Clueless' and '8 Mile', appears to have died from natural causes.

Murphy's Hollywood career began when she was a teenager. She was born in Atlanta, but when she decided she wanted to pursue acting, her mother moved to California to make it possible. She was fourteen when she began to land TV roles, which included appearances in shows such as 'Frasier', 'Blossom', 'Party Of Five' and 'Boy Meets World', and she also appeared as Luanne on 'King Of The Hill', the animated series that ran on the Fox network for more than ten years.

From TV she moved to film. Her big break was the aforementioned Jane Austen update 'Clueless', though she went on to play parts in other high profile films, amongst them 'Girl, Interrupted', 'Sin City', and one of my personal favourites, 'Drop Dead Gorgeous'. Her movie career had seemingly faltered in recent years, however.

There was also a musical element to Murphy's career; she collaborated with UK DJ Paul Oakenfold on the single 'Faster Kill Pussycat', released in June 2006, and also recorded a couple of covers as part of her voice role in the animated feature 'Happy Feet'.

As has become normal in the age of Twitter, many have tweeted their tributes. Ashton Kutcher, Murphy's co-star in 2003 film 'Just Married', who at one time dated the actress wrote: "2day the world lost a little piece of sunshine. My deepest condolences go out 2 Brittany's family, her husband, & her amazing mother Sharon".

Singer Jessica Simpson said: "Brittany Murphy was an incredible ray of light to so many people. Her smile was contagious. My prayers are with her family and loved ones". Whoopi Goldberg also paid tribute, saying: "It is a terrible loss for us as actors and to the industry but even greater for her family. My thoughts and prayers are with them."

'Clueless' co-star Alicia Silverstone offered her comments the old fashioned way, telling reporters: "I always felt connected to her as we shared a very special experience in our lives together. I feel love in my heart for her - and hope she is at peace. This is truly sad. I loved working with Brittany. She was so talented, so warm, and so sweet".

Murphy was clearly very popular with young Hollywood, and considered a genuinely nice person by so many. It might be a factor in why the gossip blogs are now laying into her widower, Simon Monjack, who they accuse of being a big shady, particularly in respect of the fact that he doesn't want a post mortem.

Arts Council England has announced a £34,000 fund which will be put towards developing arts opportunities for older, and a number of  London organisations are to benefit from the cash. Greenwich Dance Agency has been given £5,000 towards its Enliven project, whilst South Asian Dance organisation Akademi will receive another £5,000 to enable its work in care homes in Ealing and Camden.

Other organisations whose projects will benefit from the fund include Battersea Arts Centre, Arts Depot, who are to work with the Alzheimer’s society and Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust on drama workshops for those living with dementia, and Westminster Arts, who will run a similar programme.

Billie Piper, as you may know, played the high class London prostitute/blogger known as Belle de Jour in the biographical ITV series 'Secret Diary Of A Call Girl', and she is to meet up with the writer, who recently revealed her true identity, for a new programme.   

American born academic Dr Brooke Magnanti recently outed herself as the author of the somewhat titillating blog, which earned her a book deal, and led to the aforementioned TV series. She will appear alongside Piper in a documentary about her story. She says of the programme: "This show will be the last word on what it was like to be Belle: how my sexuality was formed, how I came to the work, what it's like to be portrayed on TV”.
 
Magnanti began writing as Belle de Jour when she was working to support herself whilst studying for a PhD. ITV's Diana Howie, factual commissioning editor, says this: "We're delighted that Billie and Brooke have agreed to make this programme. There are no two people better placed to bring to life this extraordinary story. This will be a definitive, revelatory and entertaining show that will see them dispel the myths and expose the truths behind one of the most fascinating diary blogs of the modern era".

Piper, who will star in a second series of 'Secret Diary', to be screened next year, adds: "I am really looking forward to catching up with Belle again".

Rupert Everett has said that if it were up to him, he'd cancel the 2012 London Olympics, because, he says, it could become "a very expensive disaster". The actor told the BBC: "If I was King, I would cancel the Olympics tomorrow. I don't like the Olympics anyway. I don't think they're very sporting and I think London is already dysfunctional enough as it is".

He's not the only thesp to have expressed doubts about the cost of the event of late; Judi Dench recently voiced concerns that funding for British Theatre was being diverted to pay for the sporty extravaganza. In an interview with the Times last week, the actress said she was "concerned that they've taken a lot of the subsidy to the arts away for the Olympics".

Everett is currently publicising 'St Trinian's: The Legend of Fritton's Gold'. Not sure if Ms Dench is selling anything at the moment.

Culture minister Margaret Hodge has announced a long-list of fourteen sites who are being considered for the title of UK City of Culture in 2013.

On the list are Barnsley, Hull, Birmingham, Ipswich and the Haven Gateway, Carlisle, Norwich, Chichester, Portsmouth and Southampton, Cornwall, Sheffield, Derry, Southend, Durham and Swansea.

The judging panel, chaired by TV man Phil Redmond, will include former BBC Northern Ireland executive Anna Carragher, and presenter Lauren Laverne. They will meet in February to whittle the fourteen 'cities' down to a short-list to hand to culture secretary Ben Bradshaw.

Suri Cruise, daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, has been named the most fashionable child celeb by kids' clothing company Adams. They commissioned a study into the matter. What a valuable use of time and resources.

Anyway, poor little Suri, who can't be more than about three, has an amazing wardrobe, allegedly worth around £2million. Scratch the 'poor' then. Let's call her unfortunate. She has, after all, been allowed to wander around wearing high heels, which can't be good for her feet. And all that flash photography can't be good for her eyes. I take it back. Poor little mite.

Other tots making the list for suffering the glare of the famous-parent limelight in their oh-so-trendy outfits include the little Beckhams, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, Kingston Rossdale (offspring of Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale) and Madonna's daughter Lourdes.

Anyway, here's what a spokesperson for Adams said about Ms Cruise: "Suri is almost a celebrity in her own right thanks to her cute looks and her amazing wardrobe. She has outfits that rival A-list celebs and this gets her more column inches than many movie stars".

BBC2 has ordered a second series of Miranda Hart's sitcom 'Miranda'. The series, based on Hart's Radio 4 show 'Joke Shop' and co-starring Patricia Hodge and Sally Phillips has just finished airing on Monday nights at 8.30pm. Hart revealed the news via her Twitter account, saying that the Beeb have said "yes to a second series for next year".

Keira Knightley has said that she expects to be "burned alive" by the critics when she makes her West End debut in Moliere's 'The Misanthrope' at the Comedy Theatre this week. She told the BBC: "I'm not coming into it with any great expectations of coming away with great reviews".

The previously reported show, which opens tomorrow and runs until 13 Mar, is a new adaptation of the classic French play, which moves the plot from 17th Century Paris to contemporary London. Explaining her reasons for getting involved, Knightley continued: "I thought if I don't do theatre right now, I think I'm going to start being too terrified to do it. So I just thought, okay, dive in and give it a go".

Former children's TV presenter Johnny Ball was booed by the audience at a comedy gig in London last night as he delivered a diatribe in which he denied man-made climate change.

Ball was appearing at Robin Ince's 'Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People', which is all about science and atheism and stuff, when he got a bit heated about the issue, saying that the widely held belief that burning fossil fuels has caused a build up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere isn't true. He claims that CO2 levels are too low to cause global warming and that plants absorb it, in any case.

He's subsequently come in for a bit of criticism, not least via Twitter, where a number of people expressed disappointment that their "childhood hero" is a so-called 'climate change denier'.  It's not the first time he's expressed these views, he addressed the issue when speaking at the Manchester Science Festival two years ago, as well as during the 2007 Royal Society of Edinburgh Christmas lecture.

The producers of Channel 4 soap 'Hollyoaks' have pulled an upcoming storyline because complaints were made over similarities to the James Bulger case.

The plot revealed two of the show's characters to have been living with changed identities after having bullied a child to death. Two year old James Bulger was abducted and killed by two ten year olds back in 1993, and his killers have since been released and given new identities. The mother of the murdered toddler complained about the similarities in plot, and production company Lime Pictures agreed to change it. Denise Fergus told Click Liverpool: "I made it clear that I did not want those scenes broadcast and I'm pleased to say they clearly understood my feelings".

A spokesman for Lime Pictures said "Hollyoaks has a very good track record of tackling difficult subject matter for a younger audience and the producers take seriously their duty to deal with sensitive issues in an appropriate way. This particular storyline was not based on any real-life case and was not intended to recreate actual events".

Hmmm. There are loads of murder and abuse plots on our screens all the time, all with the potential to upset someone who has been in similar circumstances. Not sure that I can see why this would be any different.

Last weekend's 'X-Factor' final was watched by more than 19 million people, apparently. I'm astonished that they couldn't find something better to do. Especially so close to Christmas. But then, I suppose people might have had a hard day Christmas shopping and want to just sit there drinking tea and watching people sing.

Anyway, enough of my failure to have enough love for popular culture. I'm sure you're desperate for the detail on this. According to reports, an average of 15.5m people watched the show, but between 9.15pm and 9.20pm when the winner was announced (Joe McElderry, if you didn't know already), the audience peaked at 19.1m. Which means that at least a few million people just wanted to know who won, and that makes me feel a little better.

Meanwhile, on the other side, 'Sports Personality of the Year' only managed a peak of 6m viewers during the last fifteen minutes.

Eddie Izzard has been given a special award at the BBC Sports Personality Of The Year Award in recognition of the fact that he raised more than £200k for Sport Relief by running 43 marathons in 51 days, covering a rather huge 1,100 miles. He undertook just five weeks of training before starting on his charity endurance test. What a hero. I mean that, actually, I couldn't run a hundred yards without falling over these days.

After receiving his award, Izzard admitted that it was, as you might imagine, not very easy. "It was really tough," he said. "Everything was painful. People asked me if I enjoyed the running but I enjoyed the stopping! I staggered, I ran and I crawled".

The British Comedy Awards have taken place and Terry Wogan has received his Lifetime Achievement Award. BBC1 comedy 'Outnumbered' meanwhile, led the gong-count, winning three honours, Best Sitcom, Best Comedy, and Best Female Newcomer for child actress Ramona Marquez.

Elsewhere, Michael McIntyre was named Best Live Stand Up Comedian, 'Harry Hill's TV Burp' won Best Comedy Entertainment Programme for the second year running, and Hill himself won the award for Entertainment Personality. 'Have I Got News For You' took the Best Comedy Quiz Show title, Charlie Brooker beat the two young boys of 'Outnumbered' to the Best Male Newcomer Award, whilst Graham Linehan of 'Father Ted' and 'The IT Crowd' fame was given the Ronnie Barker Writer's Guild of Great Britain Award.

Peter Kay was awarded the Outstanding Contribution To Comedy award. Accepting it, he told the audience: "I don't know what to say... lovely. Thanks to anybody who's ever met me... anybody who's bought a ticket for my new show, and thanks to everybody who's selling them on eBay".

The opera written by that Rufus Wainwright blokey - 'Prima Donna' - which premiered at the Manchester International Festival earlier this year, will play for four performances in London next April, on 12, 14, 16 and 17 Apr at the Sadler's Wells theatre.

Sacha Baron Cohen is being sued by Palestinian shopkeeper Ayman Abu Aita, in a $110m libel action, after he was featured in the actor's latest film. Abu Aita was interviewed by Baron Cohen's gay Austrian character Bruno in the 2009 comedy of the same name, and it was implied that he was a terrorist, a caption claiming that he was a member of  militant group al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade. He is in fact a member of the Holy Land Trust, a not for profit organisation dedicated to Palestinian community building.

A lawyer for Abu Aita has filed legal papers in Washington DC saying that his client is a Christian, and "a peace-loving person who abhors violence". He adds that before the film came out, Abu Aita "enjoyed a good reputation for honesty and a peaceable nature" in the community, and that his status has been compromised. The action also claims that the Bethlehem businessman was not given a release form to sign.

Mr Abu Aita is also suing talk show host David Letterman after he discussed the meeting with Baron Cohen on his talk show. The actor said that he had "feared for his safety" during the interview with Abu Aita, and claimed that it took place in a secret location, when in fact, Abu Aita asserts, it took place at a hotel selected by the film's production crew.

A hearing is expected to take place next month.

Radio 4's 'Today Show' has announced that the likes of Shirley Williams, David Hockney and PD James are to guest edit the programme over the Christmas period. Completing the line up are former England footballer Tony Adams, musician Robert Wyatt, and Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal.

Hockney, a life long smoker, will concentrate on the issue of smokers' rights, whilst James will interview BBC Director General Mark Thompson as well as discussing crime drama with Lynda La Plante.

Having guest editors is a festive tradition for the current affairs programme, the producers of which allow the famous names responsibility for up to half of an edition's content. 'Today' editor Ceri Thomas says: "They will bring their own unique expertise and new - often surprising - ideas to the editorial process".