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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Mel Brooks has given the finger to Hollywood.

By Mary Milliken TORONTO (Reuters) – From the moment Reese Witherspoon tears off a bloodied big toe nail in the opening scene of her new film “Wild,” it is clear the Oscar-winning actress is headed in a new direction. It may be the best move she has made in awhile, offering the normally pretty and perky Witherspoon the chance to play a raw and angry woman venturing into the wilderness on her own, for 1,000 miles with a monster-sized pack to do one thing: save herself. The story is a real one, based on the best-selling memoir by Cheryl Strayed. “Wild” director Jean-Marc Vallee demanded the mirrors in the make-up trailer be covered so Witherspoon wouldn’t know just how bad she looked without make-up.

By Sharon Bernstein SACRAMENTO Calif. (Reuters) – Four years and seven movies after Arnold Schwarzenegger left California’s highest office, the actor and politician drew a packed crowd at the unveiling of his official portrait Monday, a flashbulb-popping event as much about star power as politics. The photo-realistic portrait, painted by Austrian-Irish artist Gottfried Helnwein, shows the 67-year-old former bodybuilder in front of the California state seal, wearing a gray suit and a blue-and-black striped tie, a smile on his lips and his complexion ruddy. “When I was a young man in Austria, I dreamed about coming to California every day,” Schwarzenegger, an immigrant who eventually married into the family of the late U.S. The Republican bodybuilder and prolific film star took the state’s helm in 2003 as the aftermath of the dot-com crash roiled California’s economy and devastated the state budget, leading voters to recall then-governor Gray Davis.

By Mary Milliken TORONTO (Reuters) – From the moment Reese Witherspoon tears off a bloodied big toe nail in the opening scene of her new film “Wild,” it is clear the Oscar-winning actress is headed in a new direction. It may be the best move she has made in awhile, offering the normally pretty and perky Witherspoon the chance to play a raw and angry woman venturing into the wilderness on her own, for 1,000 miles with a monster-sized pack to do one thing: save herself. The story is a real one, based on the best-selling memoir by Cheryl Strayed. “Wild” director Jean-Marc Vallee demanded the mirrors in the make-up trailer be covered so Witherspoon wouldn’t know just how bad she looked without make-up.

TORONTO (AP) — In the Stephen Hawking biopic “The Theory of Everything,” two college girls rush into a ’60s-era Cambridge party before the sight of the attendees stops them in their tracks.

TORONTO (AP) — Most of Kevin Costner’s most famous films wouldn’t seem to be easy sells. How would it today sound to pitch a studio on a Civil War soldier befriending Sioux Indians on the South Dakota plains? Or on an Iowa farmer who hears voices?