Entertainment review of the decade

Take a look at the list of the UK's top 10 grossing films of the 2000s below, and there is a striking theme. All of them are adaptations - of a novel, of a musical or a theme park ride.

The story is the same at the global box office, too, save for one notable exception - animated sequel Shrek 2.

But while Hollywood's reliance on franchise fare is nothing new, these charts also reveal how CGI defined popular cinema in the 2000s.

The Lord Of The Rings populated its battle scenes with digital actors, directed by artificial intelligence. Characters like Sonny in I, Robot were entirely computer generated, while motion capture techniques allowed Brad Pitt to age backwards in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

At times, it seemed that if there wasn't an army of orcs, a jaw-dropping, physically impossible camera swoop, or a bright blue bi-ped with eyes like Bambi, the audience wasn't interested.

But, despite the big studios' reliance on sequels and adaptations, cinemagoers frequently had their heartstrings plucked by smaller, more intimate films.

Little Miss Sunshine, Slumdog Millionaire, Bridget Jones's Diary, Once and Juno made millions with their deceptively casual storytelling and home-spun comedy.

Meanwhile, sparked by Michael Moore's incendiary film-making and sustained by the rise of DVD, documentaries flourished in the noughties - from polemicals like Super Size Me and An Inconvenient Truth, to more thoughtful, romantic pieces like Man On Wire.

Slumdog Millionaire won eight Oscars, including best film and best director

True life stories maintained their stranglehold at the Oscars and the Baftas.

There were prizes for biopics of gay rights campaigner Harvey Milk, musician Ray Charles, torch singer Edith Piaf, environmental activist Erin Brockovich, dicatator Idi Amin, journalist Truman Capote and - for Britain's Helen Mirren - The Queen.

But cinema largely failed to tackle current world events, with few dramas succeeding in contextualising or, indeed, railing against the political upheavals of the decade.

Notable exceptions included The Hurt Locker, a brutally realistic action movie following an elite bomb squad around Iraq, and United 93, which reconstructed the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93 on 11 September, 2001.

Latin America flourished as a centre of cinema, producing gems like Y Tu Mama Tambien, Amores Perros and The Motorcycle Diaries.

The 2000s also saw the Bond franchise reinvigorated, with Daniel Craig as the latest 007

Visionary Mexican director Guillermo del Toro flitted between Mexico and Hollywood, wrestling comic book movies Blade II and Hellboy into robust shape, while receiving plaudits for macabre fairy tales like Pan's Labyrinth, which he directed, and The Orphanage, which he produced.

The heartthrob of the decade was undoubtedly George Clooney, who managed to use his profile to rejuvenate the thought-provoking "talkies" of the 1970s, funding them through glossy, commercial affairs like the Ocean's triology.

Angelina Jolie ended the decade as Hollywood's best-paid actress, earning $27m (£16.7m) from 2008 - 2009, but her output vacillated wildly between award-baiting dramas and throwaway fluff.

At the Oscars, Kate Winslet, Cate Blanchett and Dame Judi Dench each received four nominations during the 2000s - but only Winslet took home the coveted best actress award, for Nazi-era drama The Reader.

GLOBAL BOX OFFICE
	FILM	TAKINGS
1.	The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King	$1.12bn (£691m)
2.	Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest	$1.06bn (£655m)
3.	The Dark Knight	$1bn (£618m)
4.	Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone	$975m (£602m)
5.	Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End	$961m (£593m)
6.	Harry Potter and the Order Of The Phoenix	$938m (£579m)
7.	Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince	$929m (£574m)
8.	The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers	$925m (£571m)
9.	Shrek 2	$920m (£568m)
10.	Harry Potter and the Goblet Of Fire	$896m (553m)
Source: Box Office Mojo

BEST-SELLING DVDS OF THE DECADE
1.	Mamma Mia! The Movie
2.	Gladiator
3.	The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring
4.	Pirates Of The Caribbean: Curse Of The Black Pearl
5.	Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone
6.	Shrek
7.	Bridget Jones's Diary
8.	The Shawshank Redemption
9.	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
10.	Harry Potter And The Chamber of Secrets
Source: Official UK Charts Company

BEST FILM AWARDS
YEAR	OSCARS	BAFTAS
2009	Slumdog Millionaire	Slumdog Millionaire
2008	No Country For Old Men	Atonement
2007	The Departed	The Queen
2006	Crash	Brokeback Mountain
2005	Million Dollar Baby	The Aviator
2004	The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King	The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King
2003	Chicago	The Pianist
2002	A Beautiful Mind	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
2001	Gladiator	Gladiator
2000	American Beauty	American Beauty

BEST ACTOR AWARDS
YEAR	OSCARS	BAFTAS
2009	Sean Penn Milk	Mickey Rourke The Wrestler
2008	Daniel Day-Lewis There Will Be Blood	Daniel Day-Lewis There Will Be Blood
2007	Forest Whitaker Last King Of Scotland	Forest Whitaker Last King Of Scotland
2006	Philip Seymour Hoffman Capote	Philip Seymour Hoffman Capote
2005	Jamie Foxx Ray	Jamie Foxx Ray
2004	Sean Penn Mystic River	Bill Murray Lost In Translation
2003	Adrian Brody The Pianist	Daniel Day-Lewis Gangs Of New York
2002	Denzel Washington Training Day	Russell Crowe A Beautiful Mind
2001	Russell Crowe Gladiator	Jamie Bell Billy Elliot
2000	Kevin Spacey American Beauty	Kevin Spacey American Beauty

BEST ACTRESS AWARDS
YEAR	OSCARS	BAFTAS
2009	Kate Winslet The Reader	Kate Winslet The Reader
2008	Marion Cotillard La Vie En Rose	Marion Cotillard La Vie En Rose
2007	Dame Helen Mirren The Queen	Dame Helen Mirren The Queen
2006	Reese Witherspoon Walk The Line	Reese Witherspoon Walk The Line
2005	Hilary Swank Million Dollar Baby	Imelda Staunton Vera Drake
2004	Charlize Theron Monster	Scarlett Johansson Lost In Translation
2003	Nicole Kidman The Hours	Nicole Kidman The Hours
2002	Halle Berry Monster's Ball	Dame Judi Dench Iris
2001	Julia Roberts Erin Brockovich	Julia Roberts Erin Brockovich
2000	Hilary Swank Boys Don't Cry	Annette Benning American Beauty

RAZZIE AWARDS FOR WORST PICTURE
YEAR	FILM
2009	The Love Guru
2008	I Know Who Killed Me
2007	Basic Instinct 2
2006	Dirty Love
2005	Catwoman
2004	Gigli
2003	Swept Away
2002	Freddy Got Fingered
2001	Battlefield Earth
2000	Wild Wild West

Pope Benedict XVI appeals for peace in 2010

The pope has called for peace and the protection of children as he celebrated a Mass to mark the start of 2010.

Pope Benedict XVI said peace began with mutual respect between people, regardless of their ethnicity or faith.

He said the shared characteristics of children such as laughter and tears made it clear all men were brothers.

Marking the Roman Catholic Church's World Day of Peace, the pope appealed to armed groups to "stop, reflect and abandon the way of violence".

"Respect others, regardless of their skin colour, nationality, language, religion," he said.

The leader of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics added that the value of respect for all should be taught from an early age.

He remarked that it was increasingly common for children from different countries and backgrounds to share the same classroom.

"Their faces are a prophecy of the kind of humanity we are called upon to create: a family of families and peoples," said Pope Benedict.

Pictures of young people caught up in conflicts with faces "disfigured by pain and desperation" were a silent appeal for peace, said the 82-year-old pontiff.

He also called for people to take more care of the environment, saying that the degradation of man led to the degradation of the planet.

Pope Benedict was speaking in St Peter's Basilica a week after he was knocked down in the Rome cathedral by a woman during a Christmas Eve liturgy.

The pontiff was unhurt in the melee, but an elderly French cardinal broke his hip.

The Vatican said the 25-year-old woman involved was mentally unstable.

Britney Spears recalls top 75 'absurd' stories of 2009

Singer Britney Spears has hit back at the gossip columns, listing the top 75 "most ridiculous" or "patently absurd" stories written about her in 2009.

Published on her website, The Year in BS said there were more than 13,000 stories written about the 28-year-old.

The list includes various reports of new boyfriends, emotional breakdowns and one claiming her family was once so poor they ate squirrels.

At number one was a story about Spears dating choreographer Sandip Soparrkar.

In January, the Daily Mirror reported Spears was dating Soparrkar and that she had hosted a private New Year's Eve party to introduce him to her friends and parents.

'Factually inaccurate'

The Daily Star later reported in October that sales of squirrel meat soared after a new Spears biography included claims the star's family would eat whatever father Jamie could hunt.

"We ranked the ones we believe were the most ridiculous," the post on the website said.

"Either because they were factually inaccurate, because they reported the patently absurd, or because we believe they are simply offensive to the sensibilities."

The list culled mostly from US and British websites, celebrity magazines and tabloid newspapers, also included allegations she was being drugged by her father and supposed demands for stripper poles in her room at London's Dorchester Hotel to help her keep in shape.

The star quashed rumours that she was pregnant with a third child, was addicted to gardening and under orders from her father to read the Bible every day to keep her "on the straight and narrow".

Several of the stories also related to Spears's recent troubled tour of Australia, where it was reported fans had walked out of a concert in Perth because of her lip-synching.

Deadly blast targets Shiite procession in Pakistan

slamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- A blast targeting a Shiite procession shook Pakistan's financial capital, Karachi, on Monday. At least eight people were killed and 20 others wounded, police said.

The blast took place on M.A. Jinnah Road where thousands of Shiite devotees were commemorating Ashura, a major religious observance, said police Inspector Mahmood Ahmed.

Ashura marks the death anniversary of Imam Hussein, grandson of Prophet Mohammed. Hussein, who was killed in battle in Karbala in 680 A.D., is regarded as a martyr -- and the battle is one of the events that helped create the schism between Sunnis and Shiites, the two main Muslim religious movements.

Religious mourning during Ashura is characterized by people chanting, beating their breasts in penance, cutting themselves with daggers or swords and whipping themselves in synchronized moves.

Shias are a minority in Pakistan.

A day earlier, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to a mosque in Muzaffarabad in northeast Pakistan.

Three police officers and four civilians died in the blast. Eighty-one others were wounded.

Burberry Tops at British Fashion Awards

LONDON — The British fashion industry wrapped up its 25th anniversary celebrations Wednesday night with a gala evening and awards ceremony at which Burberry scooped up the top two prizes.

The annual British Fashion Awards were held this year inside the Victorian Gothic walls of the Royal Courts of Justice, home to England’s Court of Appeal and the High Court. Christopher Bailey, Burberry’s chief creative officer, was forced to do laps between his table and the stage, accepting prizes for both Designer Brand and BFC Designer of the Year.

“Particularly, I want to thank Angela Ahrendts, our chief executive and my partner in crime. She is an amazing leader, and I have huge respect for her and we all share this award together,” he said after Victoria Beckham handed him the Designer of the Year award.

It was the second time Bailey received the Designer of the Year accolade, having walked off with it in 2005. Earlier in the evening, Bailey revealed that Burberry would show its Prorsum collection in London for a second time during fashion week in February.

Guests including Kate Moss, Princess Beatrice, Graeme Black, Joan Burstein, Stephen Jones, Matthew Williamson, Sarah Brown, Samantha Cameron, Claudia Schiffer, Eva Herzigova, Dame Vivienne Westwood, Georgia Jagger, Yasmin and Simon Le Bon, Wendy Dagworthy and Sojin Lee gathered for dinner under the soaring vaulted ceilings of the chilly court’s main hall.

“I came because I’m British and I’m proud,” said Beckham, who was wearing a floor-length dress with bejeweled shoulders of her own design. She told WWD she’s hammering out plans to take a more active role in the BFC that may involve mentoring young designers or acting as an ambassador.

During dinner, the BFC screened a short 3-D film showcasing 25 star dresses from the past quarter century, including looks by Alexander McQueen, Anthony Price, Hussein Chalayan, John Galliano, Rifat Ozbek, Katharine Hamnett and Sophia Kokosalaki.

“The holograms were surreal,” said Black, referring to the film. “We weren’t just looking at a show of dresses — it was an interactive experience.”

Other award winners included Peter Pilotto for emerging talent in ready-to-wear; Georgia Jagger for model; Katie Hillier for accessories designer; Kim Jones of Dunhill for men’s wear designer; Galliano for outstanding achievement in fashion design, and Moss for London 25, a new award that recognizes an “international ambassador” for the city’s fashion industry.

Grace Coddington scooped the Isabella Blow Award for fashion creator, while Christopher Kane won for British Collection of the Year, an award that goes to a directional designer who’s building an international presence.

Cup of Nations clash creates friction

If there's one Christmas present all football managers across Europe would probably want, it's undoubtedly a change in the scheduling of the African Cup of Nations.

Every other year, the club-versus-country row routinely dominates the back pages as Africa's premier sports event approaches and clubs lose key players for around a month.

And the row seems to grow with every passing year as Africans become increasingly pivotal in world football.

Premier League leaders Chelsea, for example, must continue their title chase without Didier Drogba, John Mikel Obi, Michael Essien and Salomon Kalou, while Portsmouth's relegation battle is not helped by losing a similar tally of players.

The story is the same across Europe. The French and Belgian leagues are always hardest hit, while Spanish leaders Barcelona must do without midfield duo Yaya Toure and Seydou Keita. In Serie A, table-topping Inter Milan must do without Samuel Eto'o, but not, surprisingly, Sulley Muntari.

The Cup of Nations storm is such that even the normally placid Roy Hodgson has been caught up this year. The Fulham coach angered Ghana's FA by labelling their request for John Pantsil's release - they wanted him to leave on Sunday, 27 December - as "disrespectful".

Hodgson's comments are not without irony since this is the day that players must be released anyway according to world giverning body Fifa. The normally mild-mannered former Switzerland boss clearly cannot see past Monday's West London derby against Chelsea.

In any case, sympathy is limited, for the oft-repeated cry has been, quite rightly, that Hodgson and other coaches knew they would lose their African players every other January when they signed them.

Some players even make it crystal clear they will not join a club unless they can be released for the tournament.

"An important English club once offered me a good financial and sporting deal, but I was honest and explained my commitments with Cameroon, especially the Nations Cup, so I lost the deal," Patrick Mboma recently told the BBC. "But I have no regrets. I was a Cameroonian before becoming a footballer, so my country comes first."

On the face of it, it does border on the insane to stage a continental finals during the European season - even if it made little difference prior to the mass influx of Africans in the 1990s.

Although it now affects some of the world's top clubs, the Confederation of African Football (Caf) still dismisses all requests to change the timing, always claiming that Africa's weather in June is too severe, whether through excessive heat or unplayable rain.

But this is not the most convincing argument, especially considering that the prospect of hosting the World Cup in June 2010 sparked a bidding frenzy across the continent. Many matches at next year's finals will also be notable for the cold, but no one is saying the tournament shouldn't be held because it's the South African winter.

Furthermore, Africa staged vital Cup of Nations and World Cup qualifying matches in June 2008 and June 2009, when more than 100 games were played in 47 countries.
I can't, off the top of my head, recall too many complaints about the conditions then.
So should Caf do the unexpected one day and reschedule the competition to June, as repeatedly requested by the likes of Eto'o, Essien and El Hadji Diouf, the year would also have to change.

It would have to be an odd year - just like it was when the tournament first began in 1957 - to avoid clashing with the World Cup and, to a lesser extent, the Olympics and European Championships, too.

This would surely benefit Africa, as the Cup of Nations could snag an uncrowded slot in the football calendar, thus increasing worldwide attention.

It would also silence European calls for the event to be staged quadrennially, which are clearly the result of vested interests. Did the off-season Copa America receive such vociferous criticism when it was regularly played every two years?

It's important to see things from an African point of view. Staging the competition biennially means the infrastructure in one of the continent's 53 nations improves cyclically - as seen most clearly by Mali 2002 and Burkina Faso 1998.

In addition, the Cup of Nations largely keeps Caf afloat since it provides around 80% of the African body's revenue.

Yet with Caf showing little political will to pander to European calls and move the finals, perhaps the opinions of Abedi Pele may engineer the first step towards a different scheduling.

The Ghanaian advances one of the more relevant arguments for moving the tournament, highlighting the difficulty of performing at a World Cup for Africa's finalists after a challenging European season, during which they've also had to contest a Cup of Nations. Indeed, the Cup of Nations is the only continental finals to be regularly played in a World Cup year.

Pele's view is shared by former France coach Gerard Houllier, but if the three-time African Footballer of the Year is to get his way, all African teams would seemingly need to fail in South Africa, save for the hosts themselves who won't be in Angola.

The problem is that Pele has been telling all and sundry that the continent can lift the World Cup next July.

Critics' views on Keira Knightley's West End debut

Keira Knightley has received mixed reviews for her West End debut in an updated production of Moliere's 17th Century classic satire The Misanthrope, at London's Comedy Theatre.

Speaking to the BBC earlier this week, the Atonement star said she expected to be "burned alive" by the critics for her portrayal of a US film star.

The play, directed by Thea Sharrock, also stars Damian Lewis and Tara Fitzgerald.

Keira Knightley may be one of 21st century cinema's revered objects but on stage she proves little better than adequate.

Her arrival on the West End in an interesting (but intellectually disingenuous) treatment of Moliere's Le Misanthrope is, well, on the dull side.

She has all the charisma of a serviceable goldfish. Miss Knightley has a flawless face but it does not move about much.

In a film actress this is often an advantage but on stage it is a snag. It's like giving a carpenter a blunt chisel.