MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- One of the most prestigious festivals honoring black cinema returned to Miami Beach on Wednesday to promote cultural diversity and recognize the contributions of black directors, writers and actors to the film industry.

PERRIS, Calif. (AP) -- Animal rights activists have sued a Southern California company that provided an elephant used in the movie "Water for Elephants."

Movies coming out this week include Horrible Bosses, Zookeeper, Beats, Rhymes & Life, Ironclad, Fading of the Cries and more...

Public schoolteachers have been getting a pretty bad rap recently, between taking the brunt of the blame for both the declining graduation rates and the escalating deficit of many a state's economy. Promising to tarnish the noble profession's reputation even further is this lowbrow comedy revolving around a shameless gold digger too obsessed with landing a sugar daddy to worry about the welfare of her 7^th grade students.

BOSTON (AP) -- A documentary that's to be unveiled this week is the start of a project that aims to show that the busing riots that roiled Boston were more than just a conflict between blacks and whites. The documentary, entitled "Can We Talk?", seeks to show that activists who wanted equal education helped bring about the court order on busing, which led to the protests. It also shows how the riots that followed affected the children being bused.

In 1966, Muhammad Ali refused to report to an Army induction center when he was drafted to fight in Vietnam, explaining: "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong. They ain't never called me [N-word]." At the time, he was undefeated and the undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World.
However, Muhammad was soon arrested and convicted of draft evasion, and subsequently stripped of his title and boxing license. And he was unable to fight again for over four years, until his conviction was finally overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Will James Earl Jones be driving on the other side of the road? Producers of "Driving Miss Daisy" said Monday that Jones, Vanessa Redgrave and Boyd Gaines will reprise their Broadway roles when the production shifts to London this fall.

Bad Teacher, Cars 2 and more

Drugs may be the contraband of choice in most modern, American crime capers, but this African adventure revolves around a present-day black market in petroleum. The picture's protagonist is Riva (Patsha Bay), a petty thief who has commandeered a truckload of gasoline across the Angolan border into the Congo with plans to resell it in his hometown of Kinshasa where the populace is in the grips of an oil shortage.

When you think of Ryan Reynolds, what mostly comes to mind are his wacky romantic romps like The Proposal, Van Wilder, Adventureland and Defintely, Maybe. Comedy chops aside, one still might naturally wonder whether he would able to summon sufficient gravitas when asked to portray a comic book superhero.