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By Michael Roddy VENICE (Reuters) – A madcap New York drawing-room comedy that played out like a classic Hollywood farce saw “The Last Picture Show” director Peter Bogdanovich in sharp comedic form at the Venice Film Festival on Friday. In “She’s Funny That Way” Bogdanovich, who in the 1970s was part of the “New Hollywood” wave of pioneering directors, has assembled an all-star cast including Imogen Poots as an aspiring actress who says she is a muse but works as a call girl. Her liaisons weave a spider’s web that nets men, including Owen Wilson — a theatre director who has played the rich sugar-daddy “benefactor” to a series of call girls over the years. Jennifer Aniston gives a refresher course in how to portray the woman scorned once she finds out about her husband’s hanky-panky partners.

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Movies — they don’t make ’em like they used to. Well, Peter Bogdanovich does.

By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) – Three million Syrian refugees will have registered in neighbouring countries as of Friday, but many remain trapped by the advance of Islamist militants or are having difficulty in reaching open border crossings, the United Nations said. Syrians desperate to leave their war-engulfed homeland are forced to pay hefty bribes at armed checkpoints proliferating along Syria’s borders, or to smugglers, the U.N. refugee agency said. The record figure is one million refugees more than a year ago, while a further 6. …

Acerbic comedian and fashion critic Joan Rivers is “resting comfortably” and with her family, her daughter said on Thursday, after Rivers reportedly stopped breathing during surgery on her vocal chords and was rushed to Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Melissa Rivers thanked “everyone for the overwhelming love and support” for her mother in a statement through the hospital late on Thursday. No further details were given on the condition of the 81-year-old Brooklyn-born celebrity, who had gone to a New York clinic for a throat procedure on Thursday. One of America’s best-known comedians, Rivers is considered a pioneer for women in stand-up comedy.

American singer and actor Harry Belafonte, French screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere, Japanese animated film director Hayao Miyazaki and Irish actress Maureen O’Hara will be honored with Governors Awards, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences said on Thursday. The academy, which hosts Hollywood’s annual Oscars ceremony and is made up of some 6,500 members of the film industry, bestows the Governors Awards to honor a person’s lifetime achievements in film. The Governors Awards, also called honorary Oscars, are handed out at a star-studded Hollywood ceremony in November. Belafonte, 87, will be given the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian award for his work in social causes, including famine relief and education.