Mischa Barton’s nude scene in British moviemaker Richard Attenborough’s romance drama “Closing the Ring” has been named the flesh-flashing clip of the year.

Barton’s big reveal beat Aussie model/actress’ Sophie Monk’s nude scene in “Sex & Death 101.” Heather Graham’s bare-all moment in “Adrift in Manhattan” rounds out the top three on blogger MrSkin.com’s sexy list.

But none of the films land on the blogger’s all-time top 20 list, which is topped by Phoebe Cates’ swimming pool scene in “Fast Times At Ridgemont High.”

Also making the 2008 list are newlywed Asia Argento (”The Last Mistress”), Neve Campbell (”I Really Hate My Job”) and Anna Faris (”The House Bunny”).

The former CEO of the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) Neil Stephenson is suing two former senior colleagues for libel amid allegations of calling him a “racist” and an “Arab hater.”

The major legal action, launched in the U.K. High Court of Justice, sees Stephenson suing DIFF Chairman Abdulhamid Juma and Managing Director Shivani Pandya.

Stephenson originally conceived the idea of DIFF in the U.K. on December 26, 2001 after reading an article in a British newspaper describing world leaders calling for tolerance to be the legacy of the 9/11 terror attacks on America.

READ IT AT HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

An extensive new research study has found that unhappy people watch more TV while those consider themselves happy spend more time reading and socializing.

The University of Maryland analyzed 34 years of data collected from more than 45,000 participants and found that watching TV might make you feel good in the short term but is more likely to lead to overall unhappiness.

“The pattern for daily TV use is particularly dramatic, with ‘not happy’ people estimating over 30 percent more TV hours per day than ‘very happy’ people,” the study says. “Television viewing is a pleasurable enough activity with no lasting benefit, and it pushes aside time spent in other activities — ones that might be less immediately pleasurable, but that would provide long-term benefits in one’s condition. In other words, TV does cause people to be less happy.”

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I guess that the networks will cancel their shows.  After a so far quiet killing season among the network ranks, NBC dropped the guillotine this evening on two of its shows.  Lipstick Jungle and My Own Worst Enemy are no more.  They have perished.  Cancellations have been levied, and there will be no saving either show.  Lipstick Jungle has filmed all 13 episodes of its initial half-season order, though it’s unclear whether it, or My Own Worst Enemy (which is currently filming its ninth and final episode), will continue on the schedule for the time being or be immediately removed from the schedule.  Nonetheless, it’s a disappointing moment for NBC, which had high hopes for each show, only to see them fail miserably in the ratings.

My Own Worst Enemy was supposed to be a hit.  A high-budget spy drama, starring big name Christian Slater, it was given the supposedly coveted post-Heroes time slot.  It did no good, and audiences did not respond in any meaningful way to the series.  In Monday’s episode, My Own Worst Enemygarnered horrible numbers among adults 18-49, bringing in under five million viewers.  Although only four episodes into the series, NBC apparently had seen enough and have unceremoniously removed the show from its schedule.  Lipstick Jungle got a surprising renewal after its generally poorly received first season.  It has been moved nights in this, its second season, but it did no good.  

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Oscar-nominated director Baz Luhrmann’s $130-million epic film “Australia” is due to make its world premiere in Sydney on Tuesday — but the director says he has not finished it yet.

Luhrmann, who was honored at The Museum of Modern Art’s Film Benefit in New York on Monday, is flying back to Sydney with a day to spare to complete the film he has spent four years working on.

“I’m going back to the mixing desk to finish it in 24 hours,” the Australian director told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday just before he left for the airport.

RELATED: Blockbuster tourism hopes for new ‘Australia’ film

“It’s right on the edge, we’re right up against it. I literally have to on Friday night push that button,” he said. “This is really dangerous, I hope there’s no problem with the plane going back.”

Luhrmann said a rough cut of the film, starring Australian actors Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, had so far only been shown to U.S. talk show host Oprah Winfrey and her audience, and “Good Morning America” host Diane Sawyer.

Kidman and Jackman appeared on an episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” on Monday that was dedicated to the film and Winfrey praised the film, saying: “I have not been this excited about a movie since I don’t know when.”

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Michael Crichton, the million-selling author who made scientific research terrifying and irresistible in such thrillers as “Jurassic Park,” “Timeline” and “The Andromeda Strain,” has died of cancer, his family said. Crichton died Tuesday in Los Angeles at age 66 after privately battling cancer.

“Through his books, Michael Crichton served as an inspiration to students of all ages, challenged scientists in many fields, and illuminated the mysteries of the world in a way we could all understand,” his family said in a statement.

“While the world knew him as a great storyteller that challenged our preconceived notions about the world around us — and entertained us all while doing so — his wife Sherri, daughter Taylor, family and friends knew Michael Crichton as a devoted husband, loving father and generous friend who inspired each of us to strive to see the wonders of our world through new eyes.”

He was an experimenter and popularizer known for his stories of disaster and systematic breakdown, such as the rampant microbe of “The Andromeda Strain” or the dinosaurs running madly in “Jurassic Park.” Many of his books became major Hollywood movies, including “Jurassic Park,” “Rising Sun” and “Disclosure.” Crichton himself directed and wrote “The Great Train Robbery” and he co-wrote the script for the blockbuster “Twister.”

In 1994, he created the award-winning TV hospital series “ER.” He’s even had a dinosaur named for him, Crichton’s ankylosaur.

“Michael’s talent out-scaled even his own dinosaurs of `Jurassic Park,’” said “Jurassic Park” director Steven Spielberg, a friend of Crichton’s for 40 years. “He was the greatest at blending science with big theatrical concepts, which is what gave credibility to dinosaurs again walking the Earth. … Michael was a gentle soul who reserved his flamboyant side for his novels. There is no one in the wings that will ever take his place.”

John Wells, executive producer of “ER” called the author “an extraordinary man. Brilliant, funny, erudite, gracious, exceptionally inquisitive and always thoughtful.

“No lunch with Michael lasted less than three hours and no subject was too prosaic or obscure to attract his interest. Sexual politics, medical and scientific ethics, anthropology, archaeology, economics, astronomy, astrology, quantum physics, and molecular biology were all regular topics of conversation.”

In recent years, he was the rare novelist granted a White House meeting with President Bush, perhaps because of his skepticism about global warming, which Crichton addressed in the 2004 novel, “State of Fear.” Crichton’s views were strongly condemned by environmentalists, who alleged that the author was hurting efforts to pass legislation to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide.

If not a literary giant, he was a physical one, standing 6 feet and 9 inches, and ready for battle with the press. In a 2004 interview with The Associated Press, Crichton came with a tape recorder, text books and a pile of graphs and charts as he defended “State of Fear” and his take on global warming.

“I have a lot of trouble with things that don’t seem true to me,” Crichton said at the time, his large, manicured hands gesturing to his graphs. “I’m very uncomfortable just accepting. There’s something in me that wants to pound the table and say, ‘That’s not true.’”

He spoke to few scientists about his questions, convinced that he could interpret the data himself. “If we put everything in the hands of experts and if we say that as intelligent outsiders, we are not qualified to look over the shoulder of anybody, then we’re in some kind of really weird world,” he said.

A new novel by Crichton had been tentatively scheduled to come next month, but publisher HarperCollins said the book was postponed indefinitely because of his illness.

One of four siblings, Crichton was born in Chicago and grew up in Roslyn, Long Island. His father was a journalist and young Michael spent much of his childhood writing extra papers for teachers. In third grade, he wrote a nine-page play that his father typed for him using carbon paper so the other kids would know their parts. He was tall, gangly and awkward, and used writing as a way to escape; Mark Twain and Alfred Hitchcock were his role models.

Figuring he would not be able to make a living as writer, and not good enough at basketball, he decided to become a doctor. He studied anthropology at Harvard College, and later graduated from Harvard Medical School. During medical school, he turned out books under pseudonyms. (One that the tall author used was Jeffrey Hudson, a 17th-century dwarf in the court of King Charles II of England.) He had modest success with his writing and decided to pursue it.

His first hit, “The Andromeda Strain,” was written while he was still in medical school and quickly caught on upon its 1969 release. It was a featured selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and was sold to Universal in Hollywood for $250,000.

“A few of the teachers feel I’m wasting my time, and that in some ways I have wasted theirs,” he told The New York Times in 1969. “When I asked for a couple of days off to go to California about a movie sale, that raised an eyebrow.”

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Say what? Joaquin Phoenix dropped quite a shocker at a benefit for Paul Newman’s camps for kids Monday, announcing his plans to quit acting. 

“I want to take this opportunity … to give you the exclusive and just talk a little bit about the fact that this will be my last performance as an actor,” the two-time Oscar nominee told Extra at the San Francisco event. “I’m not doing films anymore.” 

His rep confirmed the retirement to Extra. 

(People)

Milton Katselas, the charismatic acting teacher to the stars who also directed for stage and screen, died of heart failure Friday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 75.

Katselas founded the Beverly Hills Playhouse acting school in 1978 and coached actors including Michelle Pfeiffer, Gene Hackman and George Clooney.

(Variety)

A president who can kickstart the U.S. economy may be favoured by American voters this election season, but if left to movie fans voting in an online poll, a president who can kick butt would do better in the White House.

Harrison Ford, who played a U.S. president fighting airplane hijackers in 1997’s “Air Force One” topped a list of fictional movie presidents people would most like to lead the U.S., according to a poll released on Thursday by AOL’s Moviefone.com Web site.

Ford took 24 percent of the votes versus 16 percent for No. 2 Morgan Freeman, playing a president who must save mankind from a comet heading for Earth in “Deep Impact” (1998).

(Reuters)

Puerto Rico is standing in for Iraq as George Clooney and other major stars begins filming a new movie in the U.S. island territory.

Clooney and co-stars Ewan McGregor and Kevin Spacey are filming “Men Who Stare at Goats” in the central Puerto Rican town of Comerio.

The movie is based on a 2004 book about alleged U.S. military efforts to develop paranormal powers for American soldiers.

Puerto Rican film corporation Marketing Director Cristina Caraballo said Wednesday the island was chosen because of government incentives offered to the producers