Occupy L.A. Seeking Federal Court Injunction to Stop Eviction

American Airlines and its parent company, AMR Corp., announced Tuesday plans to file for Chapter 11 protection to attempt to unload a large debt accrued from years of high jet fuel prices and ongoing labor struggles.our editor recommendsSouthwest Airlines Sparks Outcry After Kicking 'L Word' Actress Off Flight for Kissing GirlfriendSpirit Airlines Ad Makes Fun of Schwarzenegger IndiscretionMasterImage Eyeing Glasses-Free 3D Deals With Airlines, Auto Makers (Exclusive) It was also announced that CEO Gerard Arpey had stepped down and has been replaced by company president Thomas W. Horton, the Associated Press reports. PHOTOS: Busted! 12 Hollywood Stars Who Got in Trouble on Airlines The company, which was the only major U.S. flyer not to file for bankruptcy following the September 11 terrorist attacks, which triggered a long-running slump in the industry, has continued to lose money over the last two years as other companies began making profits again. Horton said AMR Corp.'s board of directors unanimously decided to seek Chapter 11 status after meeting Monday in NY and again by conference call Monday evening. STORY: Southwest Airlines CEO Defends Leisha Hailey Removal; Company Touts GLBT Outreach The airline said its AAdvantage frequent-flier program will not be affected and it will continue to operate flights, honor purchased tickets and take reservations during its bankruptcy reorganization. However, Horton said the projected spin-off of its regional line, American Eagle, which was scheduled for early 2012, will be delayed. AMR Eagle Holding Corp. also filed for bankruptcy. STORY: Whitney Houston Nearly Kicked Off Plane for Refusing to Buckle Seatbelt (Report) Horton also cautioned that job cuts should be expected and the airline will likely "modestly" reduce its flight schedule. American, which was founded in 1930, was formerly the country's largest airline, but has fallen to third place behind United and Delta in recent years. PHOTO GALLERY: View Gallery 9 Highest Paid Entertainment CEOs Related Topics

Watch Emma Watson Spend A 'Week With Marilyn'

FROM HOLLYWOOD CRUSH: Emma Watson has a relatively small supporting role in the soon-to-be-released "My Week With Marilyn"... but that didn't stop us from jumping all over this EXCLUSIVE peek at one of her scenes! Emma, sporting sideswept bangs and looking every inch the seductively adorable 1950s sweater girl, plays a wardrobe assistant and love interest to Eddie Redmayne's Colin Clark. And in this charming clip, she rejects his advances. Read the full story at Hollywood Crush!

Kudos to remake 'Real Humans'

LONDON -- U.K. shingle Kudos Film and tv would be to create a remake of the items it hopes is going to be another high-profile Scandinavian TV drama, Swedish sci-fi skein "Real Humans." Both format and worldwide privileges to "Real Humans," created in Sweden by Sveriges Television (SVT) and Matador Films, happen to be acquired by Shine, which is the owner of Kudos. The Ten-part "Real Humans" is because of bow on SVT at the begining of 2012. Story concentrates on a brand new generation of robots, so-known as "Hu-bots," so advanced it's nearly impossible to tell apart them from people. Produced and compiled by Lars Lundstrom, "Real Humans" is helmed by Harald Hamrell and Levan Akin. Professional producers are Stefan Baron, mind of drama at SVT, and Henrik Widman, controlling director of Matador Films. The Kudos re-make is going to be co-created with Matador Films. SVT is co-producers from the "Millennium" trilogy, one of many recent Scandinavian dramas which have attracted focus on the region's talent for screen fiction. Others include "The Killing," produced by Danish pubcaster DR, along with a local version of "Wallander," created in Sweden for Yellow Bird and proven on SVT. Shine operates by Elisabeth Murdoch and was bought by News Corp. captured. Among its greatest hits is "MasterChef." Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com

New Zealand Vies for First Oscar Nomination in Foreign Language Category

This story first appeared in the Nov. 25 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.our editor recommendsThe Orator (O Le Tulafale): Film Review'The Orator' Named New Zealand's First Foreign-Language Oscar Entry When Samoan director Tusi Tamasese first met New Zealand producer Catherine Fitzgerald at a Wellington film school, his greatest ambition was to "make a short film." Three years later, Tamasese, 36, is being hailed as a brave new voice in world cinema, and his debut feature, The Orator, is New Zealand's first-ever entry in the foreign-language Oscar race. Orator is pioneering in more ways than that: It's the first feature shot entirely in the Samoan language and the first filmed on the South Pacific island of Upolu. The story focuses on Saili, the son of the dead village chief who has been ostracized by the community because he is a dwarf. Quiet and unassuming, Saili is forced to defend his family and way of life with nothing more than words and the power of his voice. In doing so, he claims his rightful place as chief. Tamasese, who grew up on Upolu, the smaller of Samoa's two islands, says it was important that Samoa become a character in the film. "The landscape, people, culture, images, color, sound and feel of Samoa offer this story a new and unique perspective of life," he says. While he wrote the script in English and translated it back into Samoan, he says he was careful to maintain authenticity by shooting on location with a mostly untrained local cast. Capturing the rhythms and cadence of spoken Samoan were key to the film's plot, he adds, particularly the difference between the villagers' everyday musical language and the orators' more formal speech. "Formal oratory is part of Samoa's poetry and history," says Tamasese. "I wanted to showcase that as well as the language of everyday life." Tamasese's ambling, observant directing style, which he says is derived from traditional Samoan storytelling, has wowed international critics and festival audiences alike. Orator was showered with honors upon its premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, where it was named best film by the CinemAvvenire youth jury, took the top prize from Europe's art house cinemas association and received a special mention from the jurors of the Venice Horizons sidebar. And star Fiaula Sanote has picked up a best actor nomination from the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, to be handed out in November. Amid all of the plaudits, the soft-spoken Tamasese remains humble. He has an idea for his next project but doesn't want to give away details. His hope, he says, is that Orator will pave the way for a new Samoan style of filmmaking "that equally tells a Pacific Island story that the whole cinema world can understand and appreciate." Related Topics Oscars International Asia Oscars 2012

Walter, the Newest Muppet: Ernie + Kermit + Michael Cera

If you mix the facial emotions of Kermit, the color of Ernie from 'Sesame Street,' and a little bit of Michael Cera, what do you get? Walter, the newest addition to the Muppet cast! With 'The Muppets' opening nationwide next week, there have been plenty of recent stories, interviews and fun facts about Jim Henson's famous creations. Now comes a NY Times profile of Walter, the Muppet who plays Jason Segel's adopted brother in the film. Most studios would likely use a new Muppet to help sell merchandise and theme park rides, but the folks at Disney were surprisingly hands off when it came time to creating a new character. As Times writer Brooks Barnes points out, "Disney executives, perhaps partly because they were distracted by a painful studio restructuring at the time, did not manhandle the film, allowing it to be weird, witty -- 'Muppety' in Mr. Segel's words -- and even a bit risqué." As for Walter... The writers did not elaborate on his looks beyond saying Walter had the feel of 'an old dishrag' and wore a blue suit, said Paul Andrejco, president of the Puppet Heap Workshop, the Hoboken, N.J., fabrication studio that made Walter. Mr. Andrejco said he started sketching various Walters -- skinny, plump, more human, more animal -- ultimately presenting 14 different iterations to producers. Once the team decided on a basic image, there were discussions about texture and color. 'We looked at 25 different possibilities, ranging from pink and scruffy to orange-y speckly to flat gray,' Mr. Andrejco said. Would he have ears? What about a nose? Bushy eyebrows or narrow?... The finished Walter, Mr. Andrejco said, is remarkably similar to Kermit, at least in functionality. His face, an orange color reminiscent of Ernie from 'Sesame Street,' was designed to be extra flexible to express a range of emotions. It took about a month to make the actual puppet. After a series of auditions, including one with puppeteer Peter Linz, the producers weren't ready to cast anyone. However, they decided to give Linz another shot. "They called and said nobody had given them exactly what they wanted, but that they wanted me to fly to Los Angeles to try again," said Linz. "They told me to think about Michael Cera -- that if he was a puppeteer he would already have the job." So, Walter is a socially awkward puppet? Interesting. (Also, side note: poor Michael Cera may never escape the awkward persona.) You can read the entire Muppets piece over on NYT. 'The Muppets' hits theaters on Nov. 23. [via NYT] [Photo: Disney]

Get A Spielberg Special Here!

Empire's help guide to The Berg hits iPadHere at Empire we do not possess a favourite director, because that will just cause arguments, however the favourite director we do not have is StevenSpielberg - childhood-definer, Oscar-champion and former Empire-editor. Using The Adventures Of Tintin:The Key From The Unicorn already in movie theaters and War Equine preparing to follow along with it, we have up-to-date and broadened the magazine's Spielberg special and moved it to glorious iPad format. And you will purchase it in the Application store now.So have you ever wondered what drives Spielberg, it has the way to go.Within-depth features on all his films, from Duel let's start and 'making of' features for many, it has everything you may need to know about his career. We have original trailers for those his films and clips from the choose number, to provide you with a fast indication of what's what, in addition to a video interview between Spielberg and fan and collaborator JJAbrams along with a Q&A withSpielberg responding to questions from Hollywood's finest. Additionally, there are exclusive photography that you simply will not find elsewhere.Essentially, it's comprehensive stuff.Spielberg:The Guy, The Films has gone out on iTunes now.

The City Dark

A Rooftop Films, Edgework Studios presentation of a Wicked Delicate Films production. Produced by Ian Cheney. Co-producers, Tamara Rosenberg, Julia Marchesi, Colin Cheney. Directed, written by Ian Cheney.With: Irving Robbins, Roger Ekirch, Larry Birnbaum, Sam Storch, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Matty Holzhacker, Ann Druyan, Mark Van Baalen, Jack Newton, Chris Impey, Jeffrey Kuhn, JD Armstrong, John Tonry, Nick Kaiser, Kirt Rusenko, Annette Prince, Jen Nevis, Susan Elbin, David Willard, Chad Moore, Steven Lockley, Richard Stevens, Suzanne Goldklang, George Brainard, David Blask, Jon Shane, Jane Brox, Howard Brandston, William Sharpe, Herve Descottes, Don Pettit, Peter Lord, Stephanie Clement, Anne Krieg."What do we lose when we lose the night?" is the question asked by "The City Dark," an informative, well-rounded look at light pollution told with a star-gazing enthusiast's passion for his subject. Helmer Ian Cheney, best known as the co-creator of docu "King Corn," explores the social, physical and artistic consequences of our not-so-dark night skies, divvying them up into six chapters that provide a wide-ranging discussion of this recent phenomenon. Though a 53-minute version is on offer, smallscreens could easily showcase the longer fest cut, a natural for PBS and environment-friendly channels worldwide. Cheney lives in Gotham but grew up as an astronomy dweeb in rural Maine. An accomplished astrophotographer, he was struck by the difference in the night skies between the two places, and set out to investigate how light pollution is changing the world. Like all market-savvy docu helmers, he knows to offer a bit of hope by the pic's end, though irreversible global industrialization won't cede modernization to the benefits of a dimmer glow. Two-thirds of the planet's population lives in a "luminous fog," meaning the constant aura of urban lights obscure starry skies. Via an impressive roster of scientists and amateur astronomers, Cheney addresses the problems this causes for the planet, such as the increased difficulty of detecting potentially catastrophic meteors as they approach Earth even with super-light-sensitive instruments. All this extra light is compromising the natural world: Sea turtle hatchlings instinctively head to the protection of light-reflecting ocean waters, but are doomed when urban glow coaxes them in the opposite direction. As for humans, studies show that women who do night-shift work are significantly more at risk for breast cancer, probably due to melatonin levels that need the light/dark cycle to properly adjust; thus, a brighter nighttime for the population in general might suppress melatonin. However, it would have been useful had Cheney spoken with experts on such problems in the Arctic, whose populations annually go three months without seeing the sun. In the last two sections, the helmer admits that city lights in dangerous neighborhoods offer reassurance and have been credited with a decrease in crime, but he also speaks with light designers such as Herve Descottes, who worked on Manhattan's High Line Park, to prove that properly directed light can keep the night sky dark while offering sufficient illumination. Impressive images of star-filled nights will remind auds of childhood trips to the planetarium, and few will fail to notice the difference when they next look up into the heavens. Clever animation helps keep things upbeat, much like the music, though some may find the tunes try too hard to buoy the spirit.Camera (color, HD), Taylor Gentry, Cheney; editors, Frederick Shanahan, Cheney; music, the Fishermen Three, Ben Fries; sound, Barbara Parks; animation, Sharon Shattuck; associate producers, Curt Ellis, Domenic Romano, Simon Beins. Reviewed at Abu Dhabi Film Festival (Our World), Oct. 14, 2011 (Also in SXSW Film Festival -- competing.) Running time: 83 MIN. Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com

Michelle Trachtenberg Returning to Gossip Girl

Michelle Trachtenberg Michelle Trachtenberg is positioned to reprise her role as Georgina Sparks for just about any multi-episode arc on Gossip Girl, TVLine.com reviews. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Then now Trachtenberg will return inside the 100th episode to awaken a lot more trouble. Once we last saw her, she found the aide of faux-Charlie (Kaylee DeFer) before learning her true identity. Following her first turn on Gossip Girl, the Buffy alum ongoing to star in NBC's short-were living Whim, a current stint on Weeds.