LOS ANGELES, Feb 27 (Reuters) – Disney’s “Gnomeo & Juliet” jumped two spots to land at the top of the North American box office on Sunday in a slow period when most moviegoers focused on the world’s biggest movie awards, Hollywood’s Oscars.

“Gnomeo & Juliet,” a 3-D animated family film that has generated generally good reviews, pulled in $14.2 million in movie ticket sales, beating newcomer comedy “Hall Pass,” starring Owen Wilson, which landed in the No. 2 spot with $13.4 million, according to film studio estimates on Sunday.

Rounding out the top three was the thriller “Unknown,” starring Liam Neeson as a man who must reclaim his identity. It dropped two places after hitting the top spot last weekend, pulling in $12.4 million.

The weekend totals were down even compared to the sluggish last President’s Holiday weekend and were notable because “Gnomeo” managed to pull off a rare feat, rising to No. 1 in its third weekend after opening. It landed in the No. 3 spot last Sunday, but rose to second by the end of the four-day weekend.

The comedy about garden gnomes did not drop as much in sales in its second weekend or third weekend as is usual for a major studio release. Boosted by audience ratings, last weekend it had a three-day total of $19.5 million, dropping little more than $5 million in sales by Sunday, enough to claim the top spot.

The No. 4 movie was “Just Go With It,” starring Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston, holding its position from last week with sales estimated at $11.1 million.

Suspense thriller “I Am Number Four,” followed closely behind at $11 million in ticket sales, while “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never” held its position at No. 6 with an estimate of 9.2 million in sales by Sunday, dropping about 31 percent in sales in its third weekend after opening.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Filmmakers Dereck and Beverly Joubert are somewhat famous in the small world of wildlife documentaries, and to those outside it, lead a romantic life filming wild animals against an enchanting African landscape.

But the topic of their new film, “The Last Lions,” which recently opened in the United States, is anything but ideal.

The cold statistic that drew the husband and wife team to their latest story — set in the lush wetlands of Botswana’s Okavango Delta — speaks for itself. In the last 50 years, African lions have plummeted in numbers from 450,000 to between 20,000 and 50,000, conservation groups say.

“These numbers are in desperate, desperate decline,” said Dereck Joubert. “So we are going have to do something about these lions now or else we are going to have to face their extinction.”

Statistics aside, “The Last Lions,” is no dry documentary. Breathtakingly shot and narrated by actor Jeremy Irons, the Jouberts illustrate their point through the emotional, suspenseful tale of one lion, Ma di Tau, as she battles to keep her family alive, hunting buffalo five times her size.

“We wanted to bring this to an audience in a big theatric venue, on a big screen, so that people could engage with lions,” Dereck Joubert said.

“Last Lions” has been compared to the Oscar-winning “March of the Penguins,” which humanized a tale of Antarctic Emperor penguins on their annual trek to a breeding ground where they share protective duties over eggs and hatchlings.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Radiohead surprised critics and fans by releasing its new album “The King of Limbs” on Friday a day early, with a total of eight tracks clocking in at a short 37 minutes and earning mild early critical acclaim.

The British band had initially said the album, its eighth and the first since “In Rainbows,” would be available Saturday. But instead they released it on their website on Friday, with a video for the song, “Lotus Flower” and a simple explanation: “It’s Friday… It’s almost the weekend…It’s a full moon.”

Unlike “In Rainbows,” which topped the pop charts in January 2008 after the band sold the album under a revolutionary system that allowed buyers to pay whatever price they wanted, a digital download of “The King of Limbs” was offered on the band’s website for a set price of $9.

The website also showed the black and white video for “Lotus Flower,” which takes more than a minute before introducing the haunting vocals of singer and principal songwriter Thom Yorke, who dances alone in the dark in a white shirt and black hat.

Rolling Stone said “The King of Limbs,” whose title refers to an old oak tree in Wiltshire, England, near where the band recorded the album, was “surprisingly short, but it’s also typically rich with electronic texture.”

The Guardian lightly praised some songs including “Morning Mr Magpie” and “Little by Little” but said the album was not as groundbreaking as the band’s earlier albums such “The Bends”, “Kid A” or “OK Computer.”

“What’s disappointing, however, is that the band — so often held up as musical mavericks operating in the mainstream

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Waiting in the wings as designers take a celebratory bow at the end of a fashion show, stylists are increasingly shaping the looks sent down the runway.

Once relegated to suggesting what shoes or jewelry would help create a cohesive look for shows, stylists are now influencing designers more than ever, affecting what garments are put together for individual looks, industry experts say.

The rise of celebrity stylists such as Rachel Zoe, who has her own TV reality show, and Joe Zee, has helped raise the profiles of runway stylists.

The stylists’ growing impact on fashion shows has divided the industry over whether they detract from a designer’s creativity or breathe new life into looks and broaden a collection’s appeal.

“The fashion community is very polarized on this issue,” U.S. television personality and fashion guru Tim Gunn said at New York fashion week, which features 89 designers showing fall and winter collections for 2011.

Gunn said while some feel stylists are invaluable, he considers them “buttinskis,” or people who intrude in other people’s affairs. He added: “I would never surrender a fashion show to a stylist. Never.”

Stylists, mostly self-employed, create images for everything from magazine shoots to celebrity looks to runway shows. But in helping create a runway show, stylists now play a “more dominant role” from the start, said Kathryn Neale, a stylist for the Luca Luca fashion label.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Nick Cassavetes, who co-wrote the drug film “Blow” and directed romantic drama “The Notebook,” has signed on to direct a new biopic about notorious drug dealer Rick Ross, the director and Ross have confirmed.

Cassavetes and Ross — also known as “Freeway” Rick Ross — said the film would explore Ross’s masterminding of the crack cocaine trade from his base in Los Angeles during the early 1980s and his claims of being supplied by Nicaraguan Contras.

“My brother was a mercenary. He worked in Central America training the Contras, so in a way the story is personal to me,” Cassavetes told Reuters in an email. “The fact that our government may have been complicit in destroying an entire community of people makes the story personal for everyone.”

The film will explore the height of Ross’ career when he says he often moved 100 kilograms of cocaine every day from his headquarters in the South Central section of Los Angeles and distributed it across the Unites States.

He claims to have been supplied by rebels (Contras) fighting the government of Nicaragua, and the film is expected to touch on the Iran-Contra affair of the late 1980s, when some officials in the administration of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan were convicted of secretly facilitating arms sales to Iran and funneling money to Nicaraguan Contras.

Cassavetes, the son of indie film pioneer John Cassavetes, signed on to write the untitled film in June last year, but only just agreed to direct it several weeks ago.

Cassavetes said that while he did not like comparing past films, “if I had to compare this movie to another that’s been made in terms of a feeling, a point of view, maybe ‘Traffic’,” referring to the 2000 drama that explored the illegal drug trade from a number of different perspectives.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Pop diva Lady Gaga’s new single, “Born This Way,” debuted on Friday — a nod to acceptance of race and sexuality and a straightforward dance floor song that was quickly compared to Madonna.

The song is the lead track off a new album of the same title, to be released in May, and follows her best-selling albums “The Fame” and its extended version “The Fame Monster.”

Lady Gaga is expected to perform the song live at the Grammy Awards on Sunday.

The New York-born 24-year-old has said she wrote “Born This Way” in just ten minutes and it was a gay pride anthem. But several critics and fans noted it sounded very similar to Madonna’s 1989 hit, “Express Yourself.”

“Basically it is a reworking of Madonna’s ‘Express Yourself’ with a touch of Madonna’s ‘Vogue’. Which is a bit too much Madonna for someone who is trying to establish her own identity as the, er, new Madonna,” wrote London’s Daily Telegraph critic Neil McCormick.

Fans thought so too, and “Madonna” and “Express Yourself” quickly became two of the top trending topics on Twitter.

“Definitely feeling the Madonna vibes, which I mean as a huge compliment. This track is fierce,” Tweeted NerdAndAHalf on Friday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Unabashed liberal news anchor Keith Olbermann will return to television on Current TV, taking a leadership position and holding an equity stake at the public affairs channel run by former U.S. vice president Al Gore.

Olbermann, who abruptly parted ways with U.S. cable news network MSNBC in January, will drive Current TV’s editorial operation as Chief News Officer and host a one-hour prime-time show airing weeknights from New York, beginning later in 2011.

The outspoken political affairs anchor, whose departure from MSNBC came just over two months after that network briefly suspended him for giving money to three Democratic politicians during the 2010 congressional election campaign, trumpeted his move as swapping to a “truth-seeking entity” on a conference call with reporters on Tuesday.

He called it “truly the most exciting venture in my career,” and said Current TV, which is independent from major media organizations and privately-owned by Gore and other backers, was in a viewership and financial position as favourable as any cable network he had joined in the past.

Current TV, which is available via cable and satellite operators such as Time Warner, Comcast, and Dish Network, is available to less homes than MSNBC — 60 million households in the United States — and mostly only on digital TV platforms.

Executives at the low-rated, five-year-old channel said the addition of Olbermann was a key part of boosting the channel’s profile. They declined to disclose revenues, except to say the company had experienced growth and was not considering an initial public offering of stock to fund its operations.

Gore, Current Media’s chairman and vice president, called Olbermann’s new position “enormously significant” and said the centrepiece of Olbermann’s new show would be his “signature and intelligent commentary.”

NEW YORK (Reuters) – It’s been delayed five times, suffered multiple cast injuries and been the butt of jokes. Now Broadway’s most expensive show ever, “Spider-Man,” has been reviewed by the critics, and universally panned.

Critics had respected tradition by holding back from reviewing the beleaguered $65 million musical, “Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark,” because it was still in previews and not scheduled for a formal opening until March 15.

But with the true opening night uncertain and producers charging as much as $277 for a seat, critics decided to wait no longer and on Tuesday reviewed the show in an apparent contest to see who could denigrate it the most.

The unprecedented and spectacular aerial stunts that account for much of the costs failed to save an incomprehensible storyline, flat and cartoonish sets and songs that failed to please, critics said.

The New York Times concluded that the musical was “so grievously broken that it is beyond repair.”

“The sheer ineptitude of this show, inspired by the Spider-Man comic books, loses its shock value early. After 15 or 20 minutes, the central question you keep asking is likely to change from ‘How can $65 million look so cheap?’ to ‘How long before I’m out of here?’” Times critic Ben Brantley said.

Under the headline “It soars & bores,” the New York Post said the flying was “impressive” but the musical was “erratic” with breathtaking scenes followed by laughable ones.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Unabashed liberal TV news anchor Keith Olbermann will return to television on Current TV, taking a leadership position and holding an equity stake at the public affairs channel run by former U.S. vice president Al Gore, Olbermann said on Tuesday.

Olbermann, who abruptly parted ways with U.S. cable news network MSNBC in January, will drive Current TV’s editorial content as Chief News Officer and will host a one-hour prime-time show airing each weeknights from New York, beginning later in 2011.

The liberal anchor, whose departure from MSNBC came just over two months after that network briefly suspended him for giving money to three Democratic politicians during the congressional election campaign, trumpeted his move as swapping to a “truth-seeking entity” on a conference call with reporters on Tuesday.

He added it was “truly the most exciting venture in my career,” adding Current TV was in a position as favorable as any cable network he had joined.

Current TV, which is available via cable and satellite operators such as Time Warner, Comcast and Dish Network, is a privately held company and executives declined on the conference call to disclose revenues, except to say the company had experienced growth and was not considering an initial public offering of stock to fund its operations.

Former U.S. vice president Al Gore, Current Media’s chairman and vice president, called Olbermann’s new position “enormously significant” and said the centerpiece of Olbermann’s

new show would be his “signature and intelligent commentary.”

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Egyptian crisis may provide the Qatar-based satellite news channel Al Jazeera its best chance yet to capture a larger share of the U.S. audience.

Even the White House is tuning in, said Al Anstey, managing director of Al Jazeera’s 4-year-old English-language service.

Much as CNN capitalized on its coverage of the 1990-91 Gulf War, Al Jazeera English has won praise for its on-the-spot reporting and context about the protests. It will be talking to U.S. cable operators about deals “in the coming days and weeks,” Anstey said in a telephone interview from Qatar.

“Many people are switching us on in the United States for the first time, thereby increasing the pressure on the operators to actually put us out onto people’s TVs,” he said.

Al Jazeera, not carried in most U.S. cable and satellite television markets, has a reputation for being anti-American but has also come under fire from Arab states since its inception in 1996.

Egypt ordered Al Jazeera to shut down its operations there and Al Jazeera has had its signal cut. Its correspondents are barred from several Arab states and it has mesmerized Arab viewers who once had little choice but state TV.

Meanwhile, the channel has experienced a surge in its U.S. online audience. By Friday its website’s live feed had been seen by 9.4 million viewers, Al Jazeera said. Of those, 3.5 million viewers were in the United States.