Entertainment Briefs Feb. 19, 2010

Va. recognizes Patawomeck, tribe of Wayne Newton

RICHMOND, Va. - Virginia has granted official recognition for the Patawomeck Indians, the tribe of Virginia-born entertainer Wayne Newton.

The Senate passed a resolution on Tuesday to grant state tribal recognition to the Patawomeck (pah-tah-WOH-mic), or Potomac, tribe. The resolution already was passed by the House and takes effect immediately.

The state recognition gives the tribe a seat with the Virginia Council on Indians but does not grant sovereignty.

Newton visited the State Capitol earlier this month to ask for recognition for the tribe. He and Patawomeck Chief Robert Green said the move would validate their identity and help them protect sacred burial grounds.

Rip Torn's court date postponed to March

LITCHFIELD, Conn. - A judge in Connecticut has postponed actor Rip Torn's next court appearance until March, citing a scheduling conflict.

The "Men in Black" actor was to appear in court on Wednesday to enter pleas to burglary and firearms charges.

He is accused of breaking into a bank in his hometown of Salisbury last month with a loaded revolver while intoxicated.

Torn has been in an alcohol rehabilitation program since shortly after his January arraignment.

Torn had received probation last year as part of a Connecticut DUI case and also had alcohol-related arrests in New York in the past.

Torn is now due in Litchfield Superior Court on March 9.

'Ghost Writer' has intriguing Polanski parallels

If Roman Polanski has great insights on the notion of exile, he did not put them on-screen in "The Ghost Writer."

What the director, a fugitive from America for decades and now under house arrest in Switzerland, did put on-screen is a faithful, fairly absorbing adaptation of Robert Harris' political thriller "The Ghost."

The movie pokes along at times, in contrast with the snappy pace of Harris' novel. Yet Polanski cast his film well - particularly with Pierce Brosnan as a Tony Blair-esque former British prime minister, a supporting player in the story but a larger-than-life figure who enlivens and dominates "The Ghost Writer" every time he enters the picture.

The film certainly has a higher profile than most of Polanski's work since the early 1990s, other than 2002's "The Pianist," which earned him the best-director Academy Award.

"The Ghost Writer" arguably is the most populist film Polanski has done since 1988's "Frantic," starring Harrison Ford.

Adding intriguing parallels are Polanski's long absence from America and the potential exile of Brosnan's Adam Lang, who faces the prospect of an expatriate's life in the United States after he's accused of war crimes back home.

Then there's the sudden twist Polanski's life has taken after nearly three decades in France, where he fled in 1978 to avoid sentencing for having sex with a 13-year-old girl. He was arrested last fall in Zurich as he arrived to receive an award from a film festival, and he now awaits a decision on whether he'll be extradited to the United States.

Polanski's bound to get a box-office bounce out of his troubles, at least.

Ghostwriter never gets a name

Likewise, headlines swirling around Lang suddenly make his dreary memoirs look like the publishing event of the year.

After the drowning death of a longtime aide overseeing Lang's book, the publisher hires a veteran ghostwriter (Ewan McGregor) to punch up the tedious tome.

This guy without a name - referenced in the credits merely as "The Ghost" and often called "man" by Lang, who has trouble remembering people's names - arrives at the New England estate where the ex-PM and his people are holed up just as huge news hits (it's Martha's Vineyard in the novel, some posh unidentified island here).

Lang has been accused of turning terrorist suspects in Pakistan over to the CIA for torture, prompting protests, calls for a war-crimes trial and a flurry at his publishing house to transform the book into a tell-all account of the war on terror.

Olivia Williams is perfectly matched with Brosnan as Lang's ferociously intelligent and sardonic wife, while Kim Cattrall is all crisp efficiency and cat-fight-ish rivalry as Lang's chief aide and presumed mistress.

With Harris as screenwriter, the film adheres closely to his story, though he and Polanski add a few more conventional cloak-and-dagger tidbits than the novel contains.