The Rome Film Festival opened in the Italian capital on Friday with a line-up dedicated mainly to emerging talents, swapping red carpet stars for films by Tajik, Catalan and Mexican directors.

Ahead of a glitzy opening ceremony, artistic director Marco Muller, who previously headed up the Venice Film Festival, denied claims the lack of blockbusters had hurt ticket sales, which are down 15 percent on last year.

The Rolling Stones on Monday release a greatest hits album titled "Grrr!" featuring two new tracks recorded over the summer in Paris, as fans count down to a string of 50th-anniversary concerts.

The first new single, "Doom and Gloom" was released online last month, and is available to stream from the band's official website, www.rollingstones.com, while the second, "One More Shot", was put online on Thursday.

Steven Spielberg said it was tough to persuade British actor Daniel Day-Lewis to play Abraham Lincoln -- but the result was worth the struggle, winning rave reviews and Oscars speculation.

"Lincoln," released in the United States this weekend, is an intimate portrait of the 16th U.S. president as he struggles to change history by abolishing slavery amid the still-raging the Civil War.

Daniel Craig wanted to get out of the role of James Bond from his first appearance as the famed British spy, he said in an interview published as the latest 007 movie was released in the U.S. Friday.

The 44-year-old British actor, known for being tight-lipped with the media, also admitted that he has trouble stopping himself Googling his own name --and has no problem with performing full-frontal nude scenes.

Two fans of the "Twilight Saga" who rewrote the vampire love story as a steamy office romance have scored a two-book deal with a New York publisher in a fresh example of fanfiction going mainstream.

Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster, confirmed Thursday a report in The Hollywood Reporter that it will publish "The Office" -- no relation to the Ricky Gervais television series -- plus a sequel next year.

Spanish actor Javier Bardem, who plays the villain in the latest 007 movie, got his own star on the storied Hollywood Walk of Fame on Thursday, two days before the U.S. release of "Skyfall."

The Oscar-winning star was joined by director Sam Mendes, who lavished praise on him, while Bardem paid tribute to British fellow cast member Daniel Craig in his latest turn as James Bond.

Britain's Prince Charles needed an umbrella Friday on Australia's famous Bondi beach as a tropical storm hit during the royal visit.

The downpour scattered the waiting crowd as the official cavalcade drew up at the Bondi Surf Club.

He already has a billion followers.

Now, Pope Benedict XVI will join the Twitter-sphere, tweeting from a personal account along with the world's celebrities, leaders and ordinary folk.

Rihanna rocked the lingerie look at Wednesday night's Victoria's Secret fashion show in New York, providing the highlight of the live-music soundtrack and holding her own on the catwalk with some of the world's top models.

And those models even had props, including Adriana Lima's ringmaster wand, Doutzen Kroes' body cage and several pairs of the oversized wings that the retailer has made its signature. It would be a close contest who got the biggest wings: Toni Garrn's giant poppy pair or Miranda Kerr's swan-style feathered pouf. Only Lily Aldridge could boast star-spangled wings that shot out silver sparkles.

Pop diva Lady Gaga, currently on tour in South America, pledged $1 million to the American Red Cross on Wednesday for victims of superstorm Sandy in her hometown New York.

"If it wasn't for NYC: the Lower Eastside, Harlem, the Bronx and Brooklyn, I would not be the woman or artist that I am today," she wrote on her Littlemonsters.com website.