Feathers

Let's face it, sometimes the holiday season is as depressing as a stale piece of fruitcake. If the thought of the usual Christmas movies leaves you cold, here's another way to shake the holiday blues away: a selection of classic comedies from the 1930s and '40s. Here are a few of our favorites; if you can't laugh at these, you really are a Scrooge. "Horse Feathers" (1932) For those who love Marxist comedies ? as in the Marx Brothers ? their early Paramount films are far funnier and more anarchic than the more staid MGM releases.

After pirouetting for hours on the set of "Black Swan," Natalie Portman would sometimes remove her pointe shoes, towel the sweat off of her brow and be met by a disapproving critique from director Darren Aronofsky. "He'd say, 'Oh, Mila is doing really well on her stuff. She's so much better than you,'" the 29-year-old actress said, referring to her costar, Mila Kunis. "Darren would tell us things about each other to try to make us jealous. I think he was trying to create a rivalry in real life between us. " That Aronofsky may have tried to stoke competition between his lead actresses is understandable ?

At a glance, "Four Lions," the debut feature from director and co-writer Chris Morris that first played at the Sundance Film Festival in January, seems certain to upset people on all points of the cultural and political spectrum: It's a dark comedy about a cell of British would-be jihadists who bumble through the planning of a suicide bomb plot. The cell's putative leader (Riz Ahmed) is depicted as a conscientious family man struggling to reconcile his religious beliefs with the realities of his daily life.

The first thing the graduate student saw was a set of foot bones at the surface of an excavation site in Peru. He turned over a rock and noticed a pattern of scales. This hinted that the large fossil might still have soft tissue intact ? a rarity. The team of paleontologists nicknamed the specimen "Pedro" and took it to the lab for further examination. It turned out to be the remains of a 5-foot, 120-pound penguin ? one of the largest ancient penguins ever found, according to an online report this week in the journal Science.

Reporting from Paris — As Brigitte Bardot approaches her 76th birthday, her starlet aura has been enjoying a broad resurgence — and the woman herself, plenty of attention. In the year since her widely commemorated 75th birthday, a fashion elite — Dior, Lagerfeld and Gaultier — have offered their catwalk homages to France's famous "sex bomb. " The actress' tantalizingly retro 1960s-era face looks out over shoppers from the posh Lancel store on the Champs-Élysées (where they sell the recently launched eco-chic Brigitte Bardot Bag)

An Emmy nomination is a very big deal in the life of an actor; for a first-time nominee, it's a particular achievement. The honor of being one of the very best can open doors in a career — and, for the lucky few, a hard-won Emmy signals industry acceptance and enduring prestige. Yet it seems that the only first-timer who actually set her alarm to "early" on July 8 to pay attention to the nominations was Sofia Vergara ("Modern Family," supporting actress, comedy) — and that's because she and "Community's" Joel McHale were the ones reading them on live TV. "I was basically asleep," admits Connie Britton ("Friday Night Lights," lead actress, drama)

Here in the land of animal companions and their faithful guardians — do not call them pets and owners — a battle is raging over just what it means to be creature-friendly. In true San Francisco fashion, city officials are considering a ban on sales of almost all pets. If the prohibition passes, it would mean no cats for sale here, no dogs, no hamsters, no rats, no guinea pigs, no macaws, no parakeets, no cockatiels, no finches. If Junior wanted a snake, Mom could probably still buy him one within the city's precious 47 square miles.

Reporting from Bishop, Calif. Two redheads got the feathers flying. Lucy and Goose were just tending to their business of clucking, laying eggs and pecking up bugs in Laura Smith's backyard. "They're like vacuum cleaners," Smith said. "There isn't a bug or a spider out here." But not everyone was enamored of the industrious exterminators. A neighbor of Smith's in the J Diamond mobile home park complained to city officials, pointing to a 1966 ordinance that prohibits "any poultry or animal yard" within 100 feet of a residence.

When Jonathan Cabral of Agoura broke a Marmonte League record in the 110-high hurdles that had lasted for 35 years, it was the strongest indication yet that the slender 6-foot-3, 180-pound junior had reached a level of excellence every teenage athlete dreams of. In finishing with a time of 13.70 seconds, the fastest clocking in California this year and the third fastest in the nation, Cabral proved the old adage that practice makes perfect --...

Hank Jones, whose extraordinary combination of versatility, craftsmanship and creativity during his nearly eight-decade career earned him the reputation as a jazz pianist's pianist, has died. He was 91. Jones died Sunday at Calvary Hospital in New York after a brief illness, publicist Jordy Freed said. Praised for the feather-soft precision of his touch, Jones was equally adept at unleashing the piano's full, orchestral gamut of sounds. Rhythmic lift and propulsive swing were inherent to his playing, whether performing as an accompanist or in a solo setting.