CULTURE

Wine-tasting and brewery-touring trips are popular in countries around the world. But connoisseurs of other beverages needs not be left thirsty. From Mexico to Japan, in nearly every corner of the

Monk ended its eight-season run with a bang, becoming the most-watched hourlong series on basic cable.

Capote filmmaker Bennett Miller is in negotiations to direct Moneyball, a baseball drama starring Brad Pitt as Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A's who rewrote the unwritten rulebook of baseball.

Paris is a great city in many ways. In other ways it can be terrible. One of the ways in which Paris is absolutely horrific is its traffic. Observing this seemingly organized chaos from the sidewalk café can

New Line has picked up a pitch from Darren Lemke, the writer behind the studio's Bryan Singer-directed project Jack the Giant Killer, that reimagines the classic tale of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King as an action-adventure movie.

New Orleans' multi-tasking funk outfit Galactic is set to return February 9 with its sixth studio album, entitled Ya-Ka-May.

Alexa Ray Joel, 23, the daughter of singer Billy Joel was released from a hospital and is at her father's house following an overdose, People Maazine reported..

Saturday Night Live featured a skit about Tiger Woods in the wake of his marital problems after a series of reports that the world's top golfer had affairs with several women.

Alexa Ray Joel, 23 the daughter of singer Billy Joel, is stable in a New York City hospital following what police called a suicide attempt, the New York Post reported.

Chris Brown was interviewed on ABC's 20/20 in a program that aired Friday evening.

Michael Jackson's death put a sudden end to long-rumored plans for a Jackson 5 reunion, but brother Jermaine on Friday kept fans guessing about whether there might be a Jackson 4 concert next year.

Rock on, Anvil. The aging band that never tasted music stardom found a measure of Hollywood fame on Friday when Anvil, The Story of Anvil won two film awards, including best documentary, from a key group of moviemakers.

Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski was released on bail into house arrest at his Swiss chalet on Friday while he fights extradition to the U.S. over a 1977 charge of having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

Nothing speaks so dramatically about Clint Eastwood's recent and remarkable burst of creativity as a director of awards-worthy films than the appearance of Invictus, a historical drama that few if any filmmakers could have launched within the studio system. Here is a movie about Nelson Mandela, South Africa after apartheid and, of all things, the sport of rugby. None is high on any list of topic...

A signed four-page letter written by George Washington to his nephew in 1787 sold for $3.2 million, and two works by Edgar Allen Poe set new sales records on Friday in auctions held by Christie's.

Australian pop singer Kylie Minogue is to release a download-only concert album, Kylie Live in New York.

Elvis Costello, the British singer-songwriter who swept through the London pub scene, the punk movement and the New Wave fad while retaining his signature sound, continues to release great work 30-plus years into his career. His latest project, the country- and folk-inflected Secret, Profane, and Sugarcane, arrived June 9 on Hear Music.

Just one year after opening, the New York City annex to Cleveland's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame will close its doors on January 3, according to one of the corporate partners in the venture.

On the chorus of her latest single, I Am, Mary J. Blige sings in her riveting voice: Ain't nobody gonna touch you better... more than I am. Since breaking through with her first R&B charting single and first No. 1 in 1992, You Remind Me, few performers have touched fans' inner emotions quite like Blige.

Cuban musicians are returning to perform in the United States after a long freeze on such visits, seizing the opportunity of friendlier overtures toward Havana from U.S. President Barack Obama.

Rihanna attracted thousands of her fans for a concert at New York City's Hammerstein Ballroom Thursday, to mark the release of her new album Rated R, which critics say is her statement on ex-boyfriend Chris Brown's assault on her and her healing.

By leaving a small white board with the words I Am scribed on its surface KiptonART catches on camera answers from a diverse group of the city's partygoers, artists and patrons.

A Sydney-based New York artist will show for the first time a series of paintings about guns in a sensual feminine way.

Director Jason Reitman's Up in the Air was chosen the best film of 2009 and Clint Eastwood was named best director by the National Board of Review on Thursday in the first big awards of Hollywood's Oscar season.

Hollywood has finally realized that Tobey Maguire has grown up. The actor who gained fame as a teenager in the Spider-Man movies has embraced fatherhood and a new role as a soldier whose family is torn apart by war.

Sony Pictures on Thursday said global ticket sales for its movies have neared $3.4 billion, beating a studio record with a range of films such as Michael Jackson's This Is It, which raked in more than $250 million worldwide.

Shiny-nosed Rudolph proved the biggest draw on U.S. television Wednesday night as the 1964 animated Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer beat Grammy nominees Black Eyed Peas and Aretha Franklin at New York's Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting.

Christie's is confident the recession is well and truly over in the world of fine art, with a record old masters sale in London next week that includes important works by Rembrandt, Raphael and Il Domenichino.

Love living it up on holiday as much as the environment? Now you don't have to sacrifice your green credentials, with an advisory group naming the world's top environmentally friendly luxury hotels.