Rapper TI, wife raise money for Alzheimer's (AP)

ATLANTA � Facing fallout from a recent arrest, T.I. raised money on Sunday for his family's new Alzheimer's disease charity and explained how the idea for it took shape during a previous period of legal trouble.

The rapper, whose real name is Clifford Harris Jr., and his wife, Tameka "Tiny" Cottle, held a luncheon for the foundation called "For The Love Of Our Fathers," which honors their fathers' battles with Alzheimer's disease.

The Grammy winner would not talk about his arrest last month on suspicion of drug offenses, but said the inspiration for the foundation came in the aftermath of his 2007 arrest on weapons charges.

"It's very, very personally close to our family," said T.I., who served seven months in prison for the firearms offenses. "And while I was, you know, while I was going through my ... period of hiatus, Tameka had the idea of ... starting this foundation. And I thought it was an outstanding idea."

Cottle's father, Charles Pope, has Alzheimer's, an irreversible neurological disorder that causes its victims to lose their memory, become disoriented and suffer personality changes. No cure is known. T.I. said his father and grandmother also had the disease when they died.

The couple said the charity will raise funds for disease research and possibly offer relief to caregivers.

Nicknamed the "King of the South," T.I. has sold millions of albums and created the hits "Whatever You Like" and "U Don't Know Me." He recently stared in "Takers," a movie about an armored car robbery gone wrong, and is working on a new album.

But his career has been threatened by legal trouble. In 2007, he was caught trying to buy semiautomatic weapons on his way to a BET Awards show. Still on supervised release for that offense, T.I. was arrested last month in Los Angeles and accused of drug offenses.

A federal probation officer in Atlanta alleges that T.I. violated the terms of his supervised release by possessing codeine, marijuana and Ecstasy, testing positive for opiates and associating with a convicted felon. The rap star would not discuss the arrest Sunday.

"We're not going to talk much except for Alzheimer's," he said.

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Flotilla ship is setting for anti-Israel movie (AP)

ANKARA, Turkey � A Turkish protest ship that was the scene of bloodshed during Israel's raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla is now the setting of an anti-Israeli film.

Part of a movie is being filmed on board the Mavi Marmara, where Israeli troops clashed in May with pro-Palestinian activists trying to breach the blockade in Gaza, said Salih Bilici, a spokesman for the Turkish Islamic charity that sponsored the flotilla, told The Associated Press on Sunday.

The movie "Valley of the Wolves � Palestine" is a spinoff from the controversial but highly popular TV drama series "Valley of the Wolves," which tells the story of a nationalist undercover agent assigned to kill state enemies. The series sparked a diplomatic row between Turkey and Israel this year after one episode showed Israeli security forces kidnapping children and shooting old men.

This time, the hero Polat Alemdar and his team are given the task of hunting down the raid's military commander and planner, a fictional character called Mose Ben Eliezer, according to the film's website.

"Mose destroys villages, kills children and throws everyone who helps Polat into prison," it says.

In Israel, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor declined comment because they had not seen the film. "Israel hasn't seen the show and will not comment on something we have no direct knowledge of," Palmor said.

No one was available at the Pana production company Sunday.

In January, Ayalon summoned the Turkish ambassador to complain about "Valley of the Wolves," forcing the envoy to sit on a low sofa. Turkey was outraged and demanded an apology.

Bilici said the crew was currently filming an enactment of the raid aboard the Mavi Marmara. It shows activists performing early morning prayers when an Israeli helicopter approaches and soldiers rappel on board and shoot at them, Bilici said.

The movie's release is scheduled for January 28.

The Mavi Marmara and two other Turkish ships were part of a flotilla sailing toward Gaza to protest Israel's blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory. Israel insisted its troops acted in self-defense after being attacked by activists on board.

Last week, a report by three U.N.-appointed human rights experts found that Israeli forces violated international law when they raided the flotilla. Israel responded saying the Human Rights Council, which commissioned the report, had a "biased, politicized and extremist approach."

The "Valley of the Wolves" films and TV series are highly popular in Turkey but are also severely criticized for stoking nationalism and glorifying violence.

In the early years of the TV series, upset fans held a minute of silence in the memory of one of the heroes who was killed off. They had obituaries printed in a newspaper expressing their grief, while a gang of angry youths beat up the actor who played his killer.

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"The Social Network" finds friends at box offices

LOS ANGELES | Sun Oct 3, 2010 12:20pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Facebook movie "The Social Network" found millions of friends in theaters during the weekend, taking in $23 million and earning the No. 1 spot at box offices, according to studio estimates on Sunday.

The movie, which tells of the founding of the popular social networking website, played in just under 2,800 U.S. and Canadian theaters for a per-theater average of around $8,300, a solid number compared to its rivals.

"It's a terrific start for a terrific film," said Rory Bruer, president of worldwide distribution for the film's studio, Columbia Pictures.

Landing at No. 2 over the weekend was family film, "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole," with $10.8 million in revenue from nearly 3,600 venues for a per-theater average of about $3,000.

It was followed at No. 3 by last week's champ, "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps," with $10.1 million, and close behind was thriller "The Town" with $10 million. Rounding out the top five was low-budget comedy "Easy A" with $7 million.

"Social Network" was released by Columbia Pictures, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is owned by Sony Corp. "Legend of the Guardians" and "The Town" were released by Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner Inc. "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" was distributed by Twentieth Century Fox, a division of News Corp., and "Easy A" was released by Screen Gems, also a Sony division.

(Reporting by Bob Tourtellotte; Editing by Philip Barbara)

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Fans befriend 'Social Network' with $23M debut (AP)

LOS ANGELES � Movie fans are spending some face time with a story about the founders of Facebook.

"The Social Network," a drama about the quarrelsome creation of the online juggernaut, debuted as the No. 1 weekend film with $23 million.

The Sony release from director David Fincher traces the history of Facebook from Harvard University, where computer whiz Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) and his best friend (Andrew Garfield) launched the site, through its meteoric rise with half a billion members.

The film also follows the nasty legal fight as Zuckerberg is sued by his friend, along with three other students who claim he stole their idea.

Sony hopes for a long shelf life for the film, which has earned Academy Awards buzz and rave reviews.

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New York opera houses woo new fans with edgier fare

By Phil Wahba

NEW YORK | Sun Oct 3, 2010 9:17am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York opera companies are rolling out more high-tech shows, broadening their repertoire and raising their star quotient this season to help break the genre's image as a stodgy art form and lure new younger fans.

The Metropolitan Opera is using cables to hoist singers in the air, employing moving scenery and intricate projections, while the New York City Opera has unveiled a concert series featuring Broadway's Kristin Chenoweth and rocker Lou Reed.

The Metropolitan Opera will stage seven new productions this year -- double the number of new shows seen just a few years ago -- as it seeks to phase out long-running traditional performances staged to please conservative audience members.

"Part of the problem is that for many years, the aesthetic didn't change at the Met," the Met's General Manager Peter Gelb said in an interview, adding that there was no question the average age of audiences had begun to fall in recent years.

These new, more adventurous productions, along with celebrity-filled red carpet premieres, are at the center of a strategy for New York opera companies to survive as a modern art form in the face of what remains an older audience.

"It's a direct engagement with younger audiences," said City Opera General Manager George Steel.

The Met's season began on Monday with "Das Rheingold," the first installment of its $15 million, high-tech new production of Richard Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelung," directed by Quebec theater director Robert Lepage.

The red-carpet opening night gala was attended by Hollywood stars including Holly Hunter, Patrick Stewart and Meg Ryan.

The four-part "Ring of the Nibelung" is part of a campaign by the Met to tap contemporary filmmakers and theater directors to stage new operas or overhaul classics to become more relevant to modern tastes.

"Moving away from 'park-and-bark' to emphasizing performers who can act and move has made it much more appealing for me," said 33-year-old opera fan Ryan Poynter, who works at New York University. His "park-and-bark" comment referred to the performance style in which singers stand statically on stage to sing a song.

Iyer said last-minute cheap tickets were what first lured him and now he sees about 30 performances a year.

The Met also will broadcast 12 live, high definition broadcasts of performances this year to movie theaters worldwide, compared to nine last season. It also broadcast the Rheingold premier in public spaces including New York's Times Square and Lincoln Center Plaza.

"I overall think you need a cleanup -- I wish we could afford more new productions," said Shrikant Iyer, a 32-year-old computer engineer at Stony Brook University on Long Island, New York, who discovered opera five years ago.

The Met's Gelb said traditional opera fans largely have come around to the changes. "They recognized that change is necessary to keep that art form healthy. Otherwise the audience would ultimately diminish to nothing," he said.

(Reporting by Phil Wahba; Editing by Michelle Nichols)

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