SYDNEY (Variety) - In a weekend jam-packed with new releases, ``American Beauty'' had winning debuts in Latin America, Sweden and South Korea, while ``The Beach'' made waves in Italy, Spain and Mexico.

Yet it wasn't all hunky-dory overseas as ``The Talented Mr. Ripley'' bowed strongly in Australia but was just OK in the U.K., Sweden and Spain. ``Sleepy Hollow'' had fair openings in Germany (No. 1 in a depressed market), Japan and Austria, but looked smart in Hong Kong.

In its first offshore bouts, ``The Hurricane'' punched up a puny $367,000 in Spain and $68,000 in Norway -- indicating how serious, issue-based U.S. films can face tough sledding when they cross the Pond.

Reigning still as the dominant title abroad, ``Toy Story 2'' stashed away $18 million in 26 territories as its foreign total hit $160.4 million and it became the fourth animated picture to reach $400 million globally after ``Aladdin,'' ``The Lion King'' and ''Tarzan.''

The Disney/Pixar picture continued on a tear in the U.K., amassing a wondrous $10.1 million in its fourth lap (off a trifling 1.4%) for a local total of $51.3 million -- now the seventh-highest earner ever there. With $18.2 million in the till after its fourth round in France, it's already beaten the lifetime tallies of its predecessor and ``A Bug's Life''

``American Beauty'' raced to $82.8 million overseas after collecting $10.9 million in 27 countries. The Oscar contender's classy debuts included Brazil's $828,000, Mexico's $387,000 and Korea's $404,000.

Domestic weakling ``The Beach'' lapped up $12.5 million from premieres in 10 territories and holdovers in 15, propelling the foreign total to $42.8 million. Danny Boyle's melodrama snared $1.5 million in Italy (No. 2 behind ``The Blair Witch Project'' in its sophomore session), $1.3 million in Spain, $1 million in Mexico (Fox's fourth-best bow) and $408,000 in Argentina. The U.K. has contributed a terrific $14.5 million through its third lap, followed by France's sturdy $8.5 million in 12 days (falling 40%) and Germany's wan $4.5 million in 11 days (tumbling by 42%).

``Sleepy Hollow'' spooked up $2.3 million in two days in Japan, $2.2 million in Germany, $512,000 in Hong Kong and $252,000 in Austria. The horror pic harvested about $9 million at the weekend, and its foreign total climbed to an estimated $62 million.

Paul Thomas Anderson's ``Magnolia'' had its first major market tryout in Japan, coming in at No. 2 behind ``Sleepy Hollow'' in the nine key cities where it made a respectable $534,000; nationwide gross wasn't available.

``The Talented Mr. Ripley'' grossed $1.2 million in Australia, including the prior weekend's platform at one Melbourne showcase, which was very good but second behind Aussie comedy ``The Wog Boy,'' which minted $1.3 million in its opener, bringing its total, including sneaks, to a strapping $2.2 million.

``Ripley'' fetched $2 million in the U.K., $367,000 in Spain and $145,000 on 23 in Sweden. Early in its run, the foreign total is about $8.1 million.

``The Green Mile'' ($16.7 million total in a handful of markets) platformed at seven theaters in London with an excellent $135,000 and unspooled in Denmark for a decent $166,000.

``Three Kings'' launched in France with a solid $1.5 million (11% higher than ``The Thin Red Line''), a potent $746,000 in Taiwan and a buoyant $378,000 in Thailand (claiming 62% of the entire market). The foreign total topped $17 million.

Michael Mann's ``The Insider'' had moderate bows in Italy ($592,000) and Brazil ($382,000), in both markets on par with the helmer's ``Heat,'' and dipped by just 7% in Argentina, clocking a rousing $977,000 in 10 days.

Reuters/Variety

Michael Shamus Wiles (“Magnolia’s” Captain Muffy) will play Mark Wahlberg’s father in the Warner Bros. feature “Metal God.” Wiles is repped by Paul Muzik at the Geddes Agency and managed by Suzanne DeWalt.

Mark Wahlberg might have left behind his lurid past as bad-boy rapper Marky Mark and successfully re-invented himself as a promising young actor with films such as Boogie Nights and The Basketball Diaries, but today, in a New York hotel room, he's getting all nostalgic about the old days.

'I miss being able to wake up when I want, and go on stage when I want and cut a song, or pull down my pants when I want. You know, just not go somewhere,' he moans. 'You can't do that with movies, they don't take too kindly to stuff like that. I tried it a couple of times early on and nearly got fired.'

It's been a few years since Wahlberg hit the headlines for the wrong reasons and he credits his new career with helping him stay out of trouble.

'I needed that discipline in my life. I was at that point where I thought I knew it all and nobody could tell me anything, so it was good to change and be in a situation where I had to be on time and I had to know what was going on.'

The transformation is remarkable. The old, obnoxious Marky Mark, who dropped his trousers on stage in front of screaming girls and dedicated his 1992 autobiography to his penis, as well as posing as a pumped-up Calvin Klein underwear model, has been replaced by a studiously polite 28-year-old, who dresses conservatively in suits and ties and maintains a profile so low that it's virtually underground.

'It's definitely a conscious effort,' he says in a hoarse voice. 'I like to play golf, or just stay home and write.'

Work is one of the few things that gets him out of the house these days and, since his hilarious and touching breakthrough performance as Dirk Diggler, porn star and loser, in 1998's Boogie Nights, here has been a lot of that.

His latest effort, Three Kings, sees him playing an all-American reserve soldier in the Gulf War who hooks up with fellow squaddies George Clooney and Ice Cube to steal a cache of Iraqi gold. Black and ironic, it's an anti-war movie in the tradition of M*A*S*H and, given its critical view of the US government's actions during the war, it's a distinctly unusual film to emerge from a Hollywood studio.

'It really opened my eyes a lot,' says Wahlberg. 'I remember watching the Gulf War and it seemed like one of my video games. It wasn't very interesting because I grew out of the video game thing by the time I was 15, so I didn't pay that much attention to it. Now, after getting involved with this movie, I found out what our involvement there meant and it was pretty shocking. It's pretty weird how many people in this country have no idea what's going on.'

Wahlberg briefly considered a career in the military himself. 'I did, as ridiculous as that sounds now. When I was 16, I'd gotten into a lot of trouble and I went to live with my aunt's dad, who was a drill sergeant in the marines, and he tried to turn me into a soldier. We went down to the marine recruiting office and, thank God, they wouldn't take me because I didn't have my high school diploma yet. The other day I was wondering where I'd be now if they had taken me and I'd probably be just like him: some asshole sergeant screaming in somebody's face and taking myself way too seriously.'

Wahlberg grew up in Dorchester, a rough, working-class part of South Boston, the youngest of nine children. By the time he was 16, he'd already spent 45 days in prison for his part in an assault on a Vietnamese man, and that was enough to prompt him to change his ways and follow the example of his older brother Donnie, who's now an actor, but back then was a member of the teen group New Kids On The Block.

Wahlberg became Marky Mark the rapper and turned his back on a life of petty crime. 'It was a case of sticking it out with my music, or staying committed to being the tough guy in the neighbourhood. You know, hanging out on the street corner and getting high and doing that whole thing,' he recalls. Now he doesn't venture back there too often.

'I get too tempted to go see the boys and the next thing you know, I'm in a street fight. Nowhere else in the world do I have a problem, but the second I go back to Dorchester, it's like I'm in the paper and being arrested for fighting and it's because people aren't happy for you,' he claims.

'You really find out who your friends are. People think that I think I'm a big shot, but I've always tried to inspire them. I think a lot of them are capable of doing the things that I'm doing. They've bullshitted their way out of trouble and made judges believe they believed it themselves and that's acting right there, so I always try and hope that they will look at my situation and take something good from it. But they have to look at themselves in the mirror, and it's hard to get out of that life and walk away and do something for yourself.'

While he seems genuinely ashamed of his violent past, there's also a sense that he's secretly proud of the fact that he's a street kid who had a harsher upbringing than most of his contemporaries. Take his reaction to Good Will Hunting, which features two middle-class Boston boys, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, playing characters from his old manor.

'Very nice guys, I like them both very much, but they were a little more fortunate growing up. They got to grow up in a nice part of Boston. But they shined a nice light on the neighbourhood, they made it seem like there were a couple of human beings there. It's a big lie, but I don't mind. I didn't see the movie, but I was happy for them and their success,' he grins.

If Wahlberg isn't quite at the same level as Damon and Affleck on the Hollywood food chain, then he's not far off and, like them, he wants to write his own scripts. However, he isn't remotely interested in revisiting his youth on screen.

'You know, that's what people expect from me.' Instead, he makes short films that are a little more eccentric. 'I made one about a Chippendale dancer who drugs the lead dancer, so he can be the lead. I did a movie called Damn Van Damme about these guys from Belgium who are in this secret army that Jean-Claude Van Damme was once the leader of.

He left to become a Hollywood star and gave away all their martial arts secrets, so they all go to LA to kill Van Damme and a lot of funny things happen on the way.' He's also happily dating actress and model Jordana Brewster in a low-key sort of way. 'I'm hoping that this is the one and this is the right thing. I'm the only one in my family who doesn't have kids and isn't married, and my mother is, like, starting to wonder.'

First though, he has to get one of his full-length scripts made. 'I figure I'll do the crazy stuff first,' he muses. 'Oliver Stone was producing a movie I was making and we talked very seriously about making the Chippendale movie. It's called Chippendale: A Murder Mystery.' You heard it here first.

Three Kings opens Fri 3 Mar.

HOLLYWOOD - Either 1999 saw a flood of good work, or else a lot of deserving candidates were simply unable to generate Oscar heat.

Either way, the 72nd annual Academy Awards are almost as notable for the no-shows as for films that were nominated.

A long list of films like “Three Kings” and “Man on the Moon” were shut out; pics such as “All About My Mother” and “Election” had much lower profiles than expected, with only one nom each.

Most years, there are two or three sure bets for a best-picture nomination. This year, the only one that seemed certain for a nom was “American Beauty,” and even its most ardent supporters were reluctant to label it a shoo-in for the top prize.

Before Tuesday morning, predictions of best picture nominees were all over the map, including “Being John Malkovich,” “Boys Don’t Cry,” “Magnolia,” “The Hurricane,” “Toy Story 2,” “The Straight Story,” “Topsy-Turvy” and “The Talented Mr. Ripley.”

Unlike last year, when “Life is Beautiful” and “Central Station” got key noms, Academy members this year avoided foreign-language films in other categories.

They also stayed away from low-budget indies and edgier fare, such as “The Blair Witch Project,” “Dogma,” “Election,” “The Red Violin,” “Tea With Mussolini,” “Cookie’s Fortune,” “The Muse,” “Mansfield Park,” “The Limey,” “Three Kings” and “All About My Mother.”

Academy voters also were stingy with noms to some high-profile studio releases that were touted as heavy Oscar favorites even before principal photography began, such as “Angela’s Ashes,” “Man on the Moon” “Anna and the King,” “Anywhere But Here” and “Eyes Wide Shut.”

And some other year-end “prestige” releases were absent in the voting: “The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc,” “Cradle Will Rock,” “Ride With the Devil,” “Onegin,” while “Snow Falling on Cedars” and “Titus” took home just one nomination each.

And comedies, never a favorite with awards-givers, were pretty much no-shows: “Austin Powers: the Spy Who Shagged Me,” “Toy Story 2,” “Bowfinger,” “Notting Hill,” “Election,” “An Ideal Husband” and “Runaway Bride” were hits with audiences and/or critics, but not with Oscar voters. “Shagged” snagged a makeup nomination.

Also absent were pics that opened in December with one-week qualifying engagements: “A Map of the World,” “Agnes Brown,” “Simpatico” and “Holy Smoke.”

Three of the animated films last year grabbed one nom apiece: “Toy Story 2,” “Tarzan” and “South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut.”

Absent were “Princess Mononoke,” “The Iron Giant” and “Pokemon: the First Movie.”

Except for “The Sixth Sense,” the most-nominated movies were slotted into late-year openings or, in the case of “American Beauty,” held in platform engagements for much of the fall before going wide. Voters mostly ignored critical favorites that had been released before November, including “October Sky,” “Election,” “Tea With Mussolini,” “Eyes Wide Shut,” “Bowfinger,” “Cookie’s Fortune,” “The Red Violin” and “Three Kings.”

In terms of individual omissions, the long list includes Golden Globe winner Jim Carrey of “Man on the Moon,” director Norman Jewison of “The Hurricane,” DGA nominee Frank Darabont, and SAG nominees Philip Seymour Hoffman of “Flawless,” Cameron Diaz of “Malkovich” and Chris Cooper of “Beauty” were absent.

In the song category, the list of omissions is like a who’s who of pop and rock. Though eligible, none of the following managed a song nom: Kenneth Babyface Edmonds (“Anna and the King”), REM (“Man on the Moon”), Madonna (“Austin Powers”), Alanis Morissette (“Dogma”), Elton John (“The Muse”), and Bruce Springsteen (“Limbo”).

In addition, pics like “American Pie,” “Notting Hill” and “Big Daddy” were filled with rock songs, but lost out to the toon world.

ATLANTA--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--Feb. 14, 2000--Turner Network Television's (TNT) roughcut.com is pleased to announce the categories and nominees for the first annual roughcut.com INTERNET MOVIE AWARDS (IMAs), sponsored by Applebee's International, Inc. The roughcut.com IMAs are the Web's first-ever movie awards where voting is held exclusively on the Internet, and supported by national television and print advertising.

Members of a select panel of Internet celebrities and personalities, including Moriairty (aintitcoolnews), Jeffrey Wells (reel.com) and members of Upcoming Movies, Rotten Tomatoes, The Onion, 3 Black Chicks, Premiere and Cinescape magazines and others, have chosen 10 nominees for each of 15 pre-selected movie-related categories.

Excerpts from the official list of categories and nominees are as follows:

Best Ensemble             Best Official Movie Website

All About My Mother       Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
American Beauty           The Blair Witch Project
Being John Malkovich      Fight Club
Cookie's Fortune          Galaxy Quest
Go                              Magnolia
The Green Mile            The Matrix
Magnolia                  Star Wars: Episode One -- The Phantom Menace
The Matrix                Tarzan
Three Kings               Toy Story 2
Topsy Turvy               The World Is Not Enough

Most Overhyped Film       Best Non U.S. Film

American Beauty           After Life
Austin Powers: The Spy... All About My Mother
The Blair Witch Project   An Autumn Tale
Eyes Wide Shut            Black Cat, White Cat
The Green Mile            The Dreamlife of Angels
Magnolia                  Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels
Man on the Moon           Run Lola Run
Star Wars: Episode One... Three Seasons
Wild Wild West            Topsy Turvy
The World Is Not Enough   Xiu Xiu the Sent Down Girl

The remaining categories include Best Actor, Actress, Director, Film, Special Effects, Style (Fashion and/or Overall look), Script, Date Movie, Movie Music and Most Underhyped Film. For the full list of nominees, please go to
(www.roughcut.com/special/ima/intro.html).

The Internet community is invited to roughcut.com to pick their favorite finalists during two rounds of voting: February 28-March 3 and March 6-17. Winners will be announced on March 17. For more information, please go to
(www.roughcut.com/special/ima/intro.html).

Applebee's International, Inc., headquartered in Overland Park, Kan., currently develops, franchises and operates restaurants under the Applebee's Neighborhood Grill and Bar brand, the largest casual dining concept in the world. There are currently 1,160 Applebee's restaurants operating system-wide in 49 states and eight international countries.

roughcut.com is Turner Network Television's (TNT) daily online magazine that covers the movie industry exclusively with interviews, features, movie reviews, video releases and daily box office information. roughcut.com has received numerous Internet awards, including a nomination for the 1998 Webby Award for Best Entertainment Web Site.

BERLIN - Leomania returns, Mark Wahlberg confides that "Tom Cruise has a small penis," George Clooney confirms he isn't going to be making an ER appearance this season, Bono swears he wasn't sentimental, and Mel Gibson doesn't show up.

It is all part of the start of the 50th Berlin Film Festival, which opened last Wednesday with the world premiere of the Bono-inspired Mel Gibson production Million Dollar Hotel, and concludes Sunday, Feb. 20, with the awarding of the Golden Bear, the festival's top prize.

The American stars in attendance were just some of those participating in a historic chapter in one of the world's oldest film festivals. The Berlin Film Festival was more or less started by Americans, there as part of the post-war occupation, as a propaganda effort. Since its inception, the festival has been held in West Berlin, near the Zoo U-bahn subway station celebrated by U2 in their Achtung Baby album. This year the festival opened at Potsdamer Platz, a startling and modern new urban complex; the largest post-war urban project Europe has ever seen, created in the center of Berlin near its famed Brandenburg Gate.

Clooney, who came to promote Three Kings and had never been to Berlin before, says, "I grew up hearing about Checkpoint Charlie. This is pretty amazing."

Of his much-hyped "return" to ER this season, he says, "In truth, they've never approached me despite the rumor last year that I would come back only for $2 million an episode. I should have taken it!"

Clooney will be on TV this spring with the live broadcast of Fail-Safe, a remake of the Cold War thriller that he is producing. He is also set to remake Ocean's 11, the Frank Sinatra Rat Pack Las Vegas heist film, with Brad Pitt. Why this fever for remakes? "I know, I should be looking forward after this," he says.

As for Three Kings' Oscar chances nominations will be announced Tuesday. Clooney smiles but predicts, "Not good. It was well-received, but [the Oscars] are about timing and things."

Wahlberg shows up with shoulder-length hair for his current movie-in-progress, Metal God, where he plays a wannabe member of the heavy metal band Judas Priest. Asked if it is real, Wahlberg cracks, "The penis in Boogie Nights wasn't real; I've said that many times before. The body in Three Kings wasn't real" a reference to the erroneous rumor the film had used an actual corpse "but my hair is real." And he pulled it as proof.

When a reporter asks what Wahlberg thinks about what Cruise was packing in his underwear scene in Magnolia, Wahlberg makes a crack about Cruise's penis size, adding, "Actually, I don't know. I've never followed Tom into a men's room."

Million Dollar Hotel, based on a story by Bono, the U2 singer-composer, was projected digitally. Bono also cameos in the film and co-produced it with Gibson's Icon Productions. Wearing purple-shaded sunglasses, he notes that writing a song means, "You stick your own ass out the window," but writing a movie means, "It's lots of other people's asses."

Gibson, who plays an FBI agent in the low-budget film about lowlifes in an L.A. hotel, didn't show but did send a video message where he proclaimed his spirit would be present with his movie. "He's just finished filming The Patriot," said his partner Bruce Davy, "and is beginning production on What Women Want," possibly for a Christmas release.

Rumors flew that Gibson really didn't show because either he was unhappy with the film which has received a tepid response and hasn't been sold to a U.S. distributor yet or he wasn't thrilled after working with Germany's much-lauded director Wim Wenders (whose Berlin-set Wings of Desire was a worldwide hit and who just may win an Oscar this year for his hit documentary The Buena Vista Social Club).

Wenders came with his stars Milla Jovovich, Jeremy Davies, Gloria Stuart, and Bono, and praises Gibson, "Mel's funnier than he is already with his very funny fame. Actually Mel knew exactly when to stop joking: the second before the slate hit [signifying "Action"]. The second after I said, 'Cut,' he started up again. It was a lot of fun working with him."

Jovovich, obviously recovered from her debacle playing Joan of Arc, had fun with the press. She was actually asked, "Are you an alien?" and actually answered by saying, "That's what they say. The people that know me best say I am."

As for Leomania, when Leonardo DiCaprio showed up with The Beach, one Berlin newspaper had a front-page offer to any Leo-besotted girl: Get a kiss from the Titanic star and the paper Berlin's Grosste Zeitung would pay up with 1,000 DM. (Slightly more than $500 American by current exchange rates.) Even without the blatant bribe, the festival looked under siege as crowds gathered hours before the Saturday night screening. Press who had gotten free tickets to The Beach were being offered 100 DM by scalpers.

It's all a long way from 1951 when the first international film festival was held. Then all of Germany was divided into East and West, a Cold War raged between the superpowers, and Berlin, the once-fabled city, was mostly in rubble and partitioned into French, British, Russian, and American quarters. At that time it was without its infamous Wall, which wasn't erected until 1962.

The Festival did not simply celebrate filmic artistry but stood as a blatant American propaganda effort to show German humanity amid the Red Tide of Communism that surrounded Germany's former capital.

Now, the festival plays a revitalized Potsdamer Platz and a new century brings the promise of a Festival that continues to redefine itself.

Nearly 18 years after he arrived in Hollywood, fresh from a summer job cutting tobacco in Kentucky, George Clooney has reached the point where he's famous and rich enough to make the films he wants to do, as opposed to the ones his agent tells him to. "I wasn't particularly successful at doing the things that are meant to be successful, and financially I'm completely secure, so from this point on, if I'm going to fail, I'll fail on my own taste and on things I'd go see, and then if I'm wrong I can live with that," he claims. "If I bomb on my own, it's easy. You go, 'Hey, I have horrible taste.' "

But he doesn't. Clooney's most recent choices have been far more intriguing than the movies One Fine Day, Batman and Robin and The Peacemaker, which were meant to establish him as a genuine film star. Out of Sight was as smart and sexy a thriller as there's been in recent years, and he's followed that with Three Kings, an occasionally radical, often funny and ultimately thought-provoking take on the Gulf war.

That it has done rather better at the US box office than Out of Sight is a relief for him, not least because the film came close to never being made at all. "We had interesting meetings, with the heads of the studio, literally a couple of weeks before shooting started, saying, 'We think we should pull the plug on the film because the terrorist temperature has been raised.' There was a great fear that we were taking not just the movie company but Time Warner into a dangerous place," says Clooney. "I felt that wasn't the case, and the studio should be commended on the fact that they still did it, which is amazing because this isn't a typical studio film at all."

It isn't, and fear of mad bombers aside, the main reason for Warner's jitters was that while the movie follows the misadventures of three soldiers - Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube - looking to steal a cache of gold bullion, it also paints an unflattering picture of the Bush administration's policy on Iraq in the immediate aftermath of the Gulf war.

"I don't want our movie, which is an entertainment, to be used as an educational tool, but are there truths in this film, you bet. Did we rearm the Republican Guard and let them shoot the Shiites we told to overthrow the government? Yes, we did. Those are facts," insists Clooney.

The film also sets up a neat contrast between his developing on-screen image as a classic action hero in the mould of Steve McQueen and his own upbringing in a family of self-professed "raging liberals". Hunched on the other side of a table in a New York hotel room, he could pass for a soldier, with his greying, cropped hair and jaunty, jock demeanour. Indeed, the 38-year-old might have been one. "I had to register for the draft, I was part of the last generation that had to do that. Vietnam was over, and it was much more about things like Afghanistan at that point. It was a little tense for a minute, but they didn't reinstate it, so I went away to college and failed there miserably."

Of course, there were other options if you were drafted, like heading to Canada. Would he have actually joined up? "Oh yeah. I grew up in Kentucky, we're patriotic. Absolutely," he claims. "There was still that anti-war sentiment at that point:we were really hard against the army and Vietnam, so there would have been some questions, but Afghanistan, at the time, seemed like a good thing to do. I was sort of fairly surprised that we didn't do it. It's a weird thing, why we do some of them and not others."

Oil might be the answer to that one, as Three Kings graphically illustrates, but as the son of a television journalist Clooney says he wasn't the gung-ho type. "We always questioned everything. My dad was an anchorman for years, so I was taught to be more informed about different kinds of points of view." His father was enough of an influence for Clooney to consider journalism as a career himself. "I studied it in college. I only lacked skill and brightness - other than that I was perfect for it," he grins. "I could never have done it. You know what I'm good at? If I've got a good script, that's it, man. There's been a lot of bad actors who've done well with good scripts. Good characters survive a lot of things."

Including obsessive film directors who work to their own rules. Three Kings' director, David O Russell, was not, by all accounts, the easiest man to collaborate with. "He was rewriting during takes. In the middle of a take he'd go, 'Say this,' and for my character, who had a lot of monologues, it got tougher and tougher. But we didn't hate each other, we just had a couple of good falling-outs that became legendary." One of those ended with Clooney's hands around Russell's neck. "Will I work with David ever again? Absolutely not. Never. Do I think he's tremendously talented? Yeah," he laughs.

Ironically, he'd spent months trying to persuade Russell to cast him. "When I read the script, there wasn't a part for me; it was written for Clint Eastwood, so the character was 60. Then I heard they were lowering the age and that's when I started chasing it. So I had to take Mel Gibson and tie him up at my house, so they couldn't find him. They wanted Nic Cage pretty badly, and Nic was really interested, but he had commitments on other films, thank God. So I just kept lobbying. I sent David a letter and then I followed him to this hotel in New York and showed up and said, 'Come on, don't be a jerk. Give me a job,' and eventually I got it."

His tenacity is perhaps his greatest asset. Clooney dropped out of Northern Kentucky University to head for LA in 1982, but didn't land the part of Doug Ross on ER until 1994. Prior to that he was a veteran of cancelled sitcoms, dodgy television pilots and B movies with titles like Return of the Killer Tomatoes. "I had this slow, plodding TV career. That's all right, I don't mind that. If your confidence comes from whether the project does well, you're in trouble, because projects aren't going to do well," he says.

In between jobs he worked on building sites and took acting classes. He married another struggling actor, Talia Balsam, when he was 28, but it only lasted three years. Now he says he'll never marry again or have kids, despite the fact that Nicole Kidman, whom he appeared opposite in The Peacemaker, bet him $10,000 that he would have a child by 2001.

"Probably not. I don't think so, I doubt it. Mark Wahlberg and I are going to live together, I think - we'll just sit there popping beers. We're doing the film of The Perfect Storm together, and then he's going to do a movie called Metal God, which my company is producing, so as Mark's career goes up, so does mine. I'm counting on him to do very well because I need him to. I'll ride him all the way into the sunset," he jokes.

Until Wahlberg moves in, Clooney can always look to the 11-year-old pig he shares his mock-Tudor house with for companionship. He bought him for Kelly Preston, now John Travolta's wife, when they lived together for a year in the late 1980s. "Big fat Max. Fat, fat, fat, he just won't stop eating. I call him my earthquake survival kit," he says with a cheerful lack of sentiment for the longest-serving companion of his life. When not working, he plays basketball or rides his Harley-Davidson with "the Boys", the crew of friends that mostly date back to his days as an unknown actor.

All those years of struggle mean he's one of the few stars in Hollywood who doesn't take himself too seriously, but then it's hard to be pretentious when you've emoted opposite a killer tomato. He is, though, down-to-earth by nature, and loyal: at the height of ER's success, he never considered reneging on his contract and plunging full-time into movies. He also manfully takes the blame for Batman and Robin, perhaps the most inept would-be blockbuster of the 1990s. "I don't take the full heat for that personally. I do publicly. I go, 'Hey, it bombed, I'll take the heat.' But I don't know what I could have done. I saw part of it on cable the other day and cringed through it. It's a tough one, because the script isn't there at all."

Which won't be the case with Oh Brother, the first of two films he's making with the Coen brothers. It's a reworking of The Odyssey but set in 1935 on a Southern chain gang. "I'm chained to John Turturro and we escape. John Goodman is the Cyclops - he's this Ku Klux Klan guy with one eye. It's got the three sirens, who turn John Turturro into a frog. It's side-splitting funny. Those guys are just genius."

Metal God, which is based on the true story of an Ohio teenager who pretends to be English so he can become the lead singer of Judas Priest, is the first film Clooney will produce via his company, Maysville Pictures. He set it up with an eye to the future, when roles may be harder to come by. "Fifteen years from now I could be hit by a bus, or I could be back on television. I have no idea. Hopefully, I won't have to rely on other people's opinions of me. You know, if people get tired of seeing me then I'll have other jobs to fall back on." He doesn't seem too worried by the prospect. "As you get older you start to form opinions and then you start to act on them more," he muses, "and you figure, 'Oh, I'll take the hits if I'm wrong,' and that's okay. I'm a big kid, I can take it."

Three Kings opens on March 3 

The second day of the 50th Berlin Film Festival led to the biggest shock so far - Mark Wahlberg's hair. Present to support David O. Russell's anti-Gulf war film Three Kings, in which he plays a soldier on the trail of some stolen Kuwait Gold, Wahlberg was sporting shoulder-length locks, a change from his usual close-cropped cut.

'It's taken an awful long time to grow,' he said. 'It doesn't feel good - when I pull it anyway. But, yeah, it's real. The penis in Boogie Nights wasn't real, OK! The cock wasn't real but the hair is.'

The reason for this fashion disaster? He is currently shooting Metal God, for George Clooney's company Maysville Productions, in which he plays a salesman who is the lead singer of a Judas Priest tribute band.

It's the third time Wahlberg and Clooney, who is producing the film, have worked together. Aside for starring in Three Kings, the pair have re-united for Air Force One director Wolfgang Peterson's forthcoming thriller A Perfect Storm.

'[George] felt really bad for me after A Perfect Storm, so he decided to give me another job,' says Walhberg. 'It's loosely based on the story of the kid who replaced Rob Halford as the lead singer of Judas Priest. It's like a rock-star fantasy come-true; the guy whose the lead singer of a tribute band becomes the lead singer of the actual band. Gets to live the rock 'n' roll lifestyle for a little while. Gets some good looking chicks, gets wasted man, y'know?'

Wahlberg, who began his career as a rapper, admitted he was a fan of bands like Megadeath and Slayer, but would not be drawn any further on the plot of Metal God. 'It's kinda like Scream 3. We're not allowed to talk about what actually happens in the movie.' As for Clooney, he could only grin and say: 'Working with Mark Wahlberg was an accident and I don't intend to do it again.'

Berlin report: James Mottram

BERLIN -- In the countdown to Oscar nominations next week, George Clooney said he does not expect David O. Russell's Gulf War drama "Three Kings" to be crowned with Academy glory this year. "Expectations for the Oscars are not good, seeing as we didn't get many other nominations" Clooney said at a "Three Kings" press conference before the film's European premiere at the Berlinale international film festival Thursday (Feb. 10). Clooney blamed the lack of award recognition on the "bad timing" of "Three Kings" release and said he thought director David O. Russell in particular should be recognized for his work. Although Russell's "Kings" screenplay has been nominated for the Writers Guild of America best original screenplay honors, the critically acclaimed film was shut out of the Golden Globes and has been largely passed over by other major awards in the lead up to Oscar time. 

As Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Anniston prepare to start work on "Metal God," the film project loosely based on the true story of Tim "Ripper" Owens and Judas Priest, the movie's producers have tapped several real-life musicians to round out the cast.

Director Stephen Herek ("Holy Man" "Mr. Holland's Opus") will helm the picture, which tells the story of an office supply salesman who moonlights in a cover band, Blood Pollution. But the salesman, portrayed by Wahlberg, gets his shot at the big time when a famous heavy metal outfit, Steel Dragon, drafts him to replace its original singer.

According to Variety, Slaughter drummer Blas Elias, actor Timothy Olyphant ("Go," "Scream 2"), and Black Label Society guitarist Nick Catanese will join the Verve Pipe's Brian Vander Ark in the fictional group Blood Pollution. Vander Ark agreed to do the film last year (see "Verve Pipe's Brian Vander Ark Cast In 'Metal God'"), and will play bass in the flick.

Drummer Jason Bonham, Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Zakk Wylde, Dokken bassist Jeff Pilson, and actors Dominic West ("A Midsummer Night's Dream") and Jason Flemyng ("Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels") will rock out on celluloid as Steel Dragon.

Because the "Metal God" bands are staffed with real musicians, look for the movie's soundtrack to include several songs from each group, although the specifics for such recordings have yet to be determined.

"Metal God" is expected to begin filming on location in Los Angeles in March, and is tentatively set for release by the end of the year.

BERLIN (Reuters) - The Berlin Film festival on Thursday focused a critical eye on the last two U.S. wars, portraying the human tragedy that came in the wake of the onslaught of massive military power.

One movie premiering in Europe, "The Three Kings,'' showed the U.S. military immediately following the end of the Gulf War in 1991, when Washington stood idle as the Iraqi government crushed an uprising against Saddam Hussein.

In the film, a group of U.S. soldiers venture on their own into Iraq on a greedy quest to find gold stolen by Baghdad from Kuwait. Yet the civilian suffering they see in villages there inspire them ultimately to help the locals -- in violation of official policy.

``It's obviously an anti-war film and there are many things about it that are deeply disturbing'' director David Russell told a news conference.

``Most Americans in the gut feel the war was not as it was presented,'' he said. ``It was not quite the big celebration portrayed in 1991.''

George Clooney, star of the television series ER and the most recent Batman film, plays a special forces major who leads three other men on the quest for the gold. Joining him are actor Mark Wahlberg, who starred in Boogie Nights, and rapper Ice Cube.

``I don't understand what this war was about,'' his character asks at one point.

An Iraqi villager responds later in the film. ``We're fighting Saddam and dying and you're stealing gold.''

Under Nato Bombs

A Yugoslav film, Nebeska Udica (Sky Hook), shows a different prospective, that of Belgrade residents subjected to the U.S.-led bombing campaign last spring.

Unlike the travelling pyrotechnics of The Three Kings, Sky Hook stays put in one neighborhood where a pre-fabricated housing block is surrounded by rubble. Every night, the residents seek shelter as sirens warn of upcoming allied bombs.

``Bombs are dropping and people are going crazy,'' is how one character sums up the situation.

Kaja, the protagonist, rallies his beer-loving and usually indolent friends to rebuild a rubble-strewn basketball court next to their apartment block.

The effort brings the gang together and provides momentary distraction amid the wanton destruction of the bombing -- which is vividly portrayed by a number of ear-shattering explosions during the film.

United States policy is less of a direct villain in Sky Hook than in Three Kings, although both are anti-war films.

``I'll hang them all, theirs and ours, they'll all hang together,'' Kaja's mother says in one angry burst against the governments of both sides.

Another film festival offering playing on Thursday also focuses on tragedy in the wake of U.S. involvement. In ``Bhopal Express,'' a couple's relationship is altered in the 1984 Bhopal, India tragedy at the U.S. chemicals company Union Carbide's plant that killed at least 3,000 people.

The 50th Berlin Film Festival screens hundreds of movies with 21 films from 16 countries vying for the Golden Bear award for best film on February 20. 

HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Director Stephen Herek (''Mr. Holland's Opus'') is tuning up for ``Metal God'' at Warner Bros.

He has tapped Timothy Spall (''Topsy Turvy''), Timothy Olyphant (''Go'') and Dominic West (''Midsummer Night's Dream''), as well as a host of real-life musicians, to perform in the Jennifer Aniston-Mark Wahlberg starrer.

In the film, set to begin shooting in L.A. in mid-March, Wahlberg plays an office supply salesman who performs in a cover band -- Blood Pollution -- before getting a part in already famous heavy-metal group Steel Dragon. The story is based on the true exploits of a singer with a Judas Priest cover band who got the call to sing with the real thing.

 Both bands will consist of actors and musicians. Blood Pollution has been cast with Blas Elias (drummer from Slaughter); Nick Catanese (guitarist of Black Label Society); Brian Vender Ark (lead singer and rhythm guitarist from the Verve Pipe) on bass; and Olyphant playing rhythm guitar.

 Steel Dragon is set with West at rhythm guitar; Jason Bonham on drums; Zakk Wylde (former lead guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne); Jeff Pilson (Dokken/ex-Dio) on bass; and actor Jason Flemyng (''Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels'').