NEW YORK - "Million Dollar Baby" has won another round, this time taking top honors from the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association.
The film - directed by Clint Eastwood, who stars as a veteran boxing manager - also earned best-actress honors Monday for Hilary Swank's performance as a fighter who comes from nothing and turns into a champion.
Two out of three New York Times critics named "Million Dollar Baby" the best film of 2004, and the movie has shown up on the top-10 lists of several other critics' groups. It also has received five Golden Globe nominations, including best motion picture drama.
The 63 print and broadcast journalists from across North Texas who make up the group named Paul Giamatti best actor for the wine-tasting comedy "Sideways." Two of his co-stars, Thomas Haden Church and Virginia Madsen, took the supporting-actor categories.
Martin Scorsese was named best director for his Howard Hughes epic "The Aviator."
"The Incredibles" was the group's pick for best animated feature. Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" won the documentary honors, and the French film "A Very Long Engagement" took the foreign-language category.
After "Million Dollar Baby," the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association's picks for the year's best films were, in order: "Sideways," "Finding Neverland," "The Aviator," "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "Ray," "Kinsey," "The Incredibles," "A Very Long Engagement" and "Hotel Rwanda."
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LONDON - Beatles guitarist George Harrison, actor Nigel Hawthorne and Harry Secombe, one of the stars of "The Goon Show," have been added to the "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography," Britain's definitive record of the great and the good.
In total, 195 biographies were added to the dictionary in the update published Tuesday. The group included 44 women.
"The dictionary is a record of people who were once our contemporaries and who shaped the society in which we now live," said the dictionary's editor, Lawrence Goldman. The revised 60-volume dictionary was published in September.
American-born harmonica virtuoso Larry Adler is among the 31 new entrants from outside Britain.
Other new biographies include Douglas Adams, author of "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
On the Net:
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WHEELING, W.Va. - Country music singer Brad Paisley has donated to an effort to build a skate park in his home state after receiving a letter from a 15-year-old boy who told him youths have nowhere to skate.
Paisley, who owns a skateboard, made the donation to the Wheeling Skate Park Committee in response to a letter from Nathan Mey, a committee member, the group said Monday.
Paisley, a Glen Dale native, doesn't want the amount of his donation released, said committee member Kathi Fader.
The 20,000-square-feet facility, estimated to cost between $200,000 and $250,000, would be the first free concrete skate park in West Virginia, the committee said.
The 32-year-old singer will hold a benefit concert Jan. 15 in Wheeling for victims of September's flooding in the Ohio Valley.
On the Net:
http://www.wheelingskatepark.com
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CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Three Dog Night and country music singer Rachel Proctor will perform at the Jan. 17 inaugural ball for Gov.-elect Joe Manchin.
The evening also will feature several well-known local acts, including Bob Thompson, Liz Nichols and the Carpenter Ants, Manchin's transition office announced Monday.
Three Dog Night, popular in the late 1960s to mid-'70s, will headline the ball. Their hits include "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)" and "Joy to the World."
Proctor, a native of Charleston, released her debut album, "Where I Belong," last year. The album includes the hit single "Me and Emily."
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NEW YORK - The video of the hit song "All Because of You" by Irish rock band U2 will be shown in public for the first time during halftime of Tuesday night's national championship in the Orange Bowl.
The single is from U2's new album "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb."
The entire video will be available on ESPN and ESPN.com after halftime of the Bowl Championship Series game in Miami between Southern California and Oklahoma.
On the Net:
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