By Alexandria Sage CANNES (Reuters) - Japanese director Takashi Miike got the final week of the Cannes film festival off to an explosive start on Monday, with big budget cop thriller "Shield of Straw" a sharp contrast to the more intense, intimate movies screened so far. Typically for Cannes, where critical passions run high, both exuberant cheers and boos rang out after an advance press screening of "Wara No Tate" ("Shield of Straw"), one of 20 entries vying for the top Palme d'Or prize awarded on Sunday. ...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — "Star Trek: Into Darkness" has warped its way to a $70.6 million domestic launch from Friday to Sunday, though it's not setting any light-speed records with a debut that's lower than the studio's expectations.

Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez continue to add fuel to rumors they're back together.

By Belinda Goldsmith CANNES (Reuters) - Film stars come to Cannes to promote themselves and their projects - so where better to launch a wry documentary bemoaning the seeming dominance of celebrity pulling-power over content? With parties, pitching and paparazzi already in overdrive at the world's premier movie market, director James Toback on Sunday showed "Seduced and Abandoned", the story of how he and actor Alec Baldwin talked to directors, investors and studio heads at Cannes last year to seek funding for a film with no A-list star. ...

By Lisa Richwine and Andrea Burzynski (Reuters) - "Star Trek Into Darkness," the newest installment in the classic intergalactic franchise, blasted to the top of movie box office charts with $70.6 million in weekend ticket sales at theaters in the United States and Canada. The new 3D voyage for Captain Kirk and the crew of the Starship Enterprise knocked mighty "Iron Man 3" into second place, while the Marvel superhero sequel grabbed $35.2 million. Jazz Age drama "The Great Gatsby" finished third with $23.4 million, according to studio estimates. ...

By Belinda Goldsmith CANNES (Reuters) - Indian movie actors and a new wave of directors are on a mission at the Cannes film festival - to show that their industry, which turns 100 this year, is more than just Bollywood. The largest Indian contingent to date is on the French Riviera at the world's leading cinema showcase to promote the world's biggest film industry that makes over 1,000 films a year, compared with about 600 in Hollywood. ...

Ben Affleck used the "Saturday Night Live" stage to make light of his much-buzzed-about 2013 Oscar acceptance speech, where he referred to his nearly-8-year marriage to Jennifer Garner as "work."

Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson have apparently called it quits again.

CANNES, France (AP) — The Coen brothers' resurrection of the pre-Dylan folk scene in Greenwich Village serenaded Cannes with its period music and melancholy tale of a self-destructive, feline-toting musician.

By Alexandria Sage CANNES (Reuters) - Folk music, Greenwich Village and a quick-footed cat star in the new Coen brothers movie at the Cannes film festival on Sunday, kicking off the first of five U.S. entries with its engaging misadventures of a struggling singer. "Inside Llewyn Davis" by directing duo Ethan and Joel Coen is a delightful tale about the early 1960s folk music scene, a tribute to artists living hand to mouth, and an ode to New York all at once. ...

CANNES, France (AP) — There's something nasty lurking in the woods — and inside the characters' heads — in darkly comic Cannes Film Festival entry "Borgman."

CANNES, France (AP) — The magic and glamour of Cannes can be hard to spot on a day when rain is lashing the palm trees, roiling the gray Mediterranean and pooling in puddles along the Croisette.

By Alex Dobuzinskis LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A custom-made electric guitar played by the late John Lennon and George Harrison of the Beatles sold at a New York auction on Saturday for $408,000, said officials with the company behind the event. The semi-hollow-body guitar, manufactured by the VOX company, was sold to an unidentified U.S. buyer at the "Music Icons" event organized by Beverly Hills, California-based Julien's Auctions and held at the Hard Rock Cafe in Manhattan. ...

CANNES, France (AP) — Little could lessen the fever-pitched excitement for "Hunger Games: Catching Fire," but heavy rain nevertheless dampened the film's lavish Cannes party.

The San Diego Channel 4 News boys are back - and still as classy as ever!

CANNES, France (AP) — Associated Press journalists open their notebooks at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival:

On the heels of "Iron Man 3" hitting the billion-dollar mark this week, Marvel Studios is opening up about which superheroes they intend to bring to the big screen in coming years.

"The Hangover's" Justin Bartha will soon get to experience a real-life bachelor party (hopefully he'll get to enjoy it more than Doug, his ill-fated character in the 2009 comedy)!

NEW YORK (AP) — Half-moon hoops, double rims, chain-linked fences for out-of-bounds lines and no net that anyone can recall.

By Belinda Goldsmith CANNES (Reuters) - Native American actress Misty Upham never dreamt she would be walking the red carpet at Cannes to showcase a film shot on her reservation. Upham features in "Jimmy P. Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian", focused on the relationship between World War Two veteran Jimmy Picard, a Native American Blackfoot, and Georges Devereux, his psychoanalyst. Upham said like Picard, played by Puerto Rican actor Benicio Del Toro, she is Blackfeet, the largest tribe in Montana state. ...