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If you were one of the people fantasizing about a nasty courtroom battle between the fashion outlet American Apparel and Woody Allen, get ready to be disappointed. It was announced on Monday, that Allen,"...had accepted a $5 million settlement in his lawsuit against the manufacturer, American Apparel, and Dov Charney, its founder and chief executive." Now if you remember, Allen had launched a suit against AA for at least $10 million after the clothier used an image from Allen's film, Annie Hall, of the director dressed as a Rabbi. When Allen found out about the ad, plenty of name-calling ensued, and AA's lawyers were ready and willing to take their fight to court in hopes of proving that Allen's image wasn't even worth that much thanks to his scandalous past.

Most of Allen's fans saw the incident as a clear-cut case of copyright infringement, but Charney and AA had a different take on their use of the image. In discussions with AA's PR representative, I confirmed that AA had intended the billboard to be a comment on the public perception of AA as a brand; or to put it in movie terms, AA was the Alvy Singer to the media's Grammie Hall. Sure, it's a good use of a movie reference, and I do see their point. But something isn't clicking when on one hand Charney says, "My intention was to call upon people to see beyond media and lawsuit-inspired scandal, and to consider people for their true value and for their contribution to society" and at the same time he was mounting a legal defense that seemed to be the opposite of his intentions (you can read Charney's full statement about the case on their website).

Even at 77-years-old, the daughter of screen legend Marlene Dietrich is as vigilant a watchdog over her mother's image as ever. The Guardian newspaper reports that Dietrich's daughter, Maria Riva has yanked permission from Universal (in the form of an injunction) to release Marlene Dietrich: The Movie Collection. Riva was angered to find that Universal had not packaged the DVD's as agreed, and considered it a serious enough contract violation that the estate may end up in court over it. The German head of the collection's estate said, "This is important for us. Marlene Dietrich was and remains the only world star that Germany has ever produced. There is no other Marlene Dietrich - she is unique".

This is not the first time Riva has headed to the courtroom over the use of her mother's image. In 1999, she took Toshiba to court over a photocopier ad and then she sued EMI over bonus footage in a concert DVD. Universal hasn't really commented on the possible litigation, but their PR rep had stated that "It's been withdrawn due to a minor error on the packaging, but it's being sorted out". Luckily, there are already plenty of Dietrich films on DVD, because it might be some time before Riva lets Universal off the hook.

It seems a little strange that as current pop culture becomes more and more comfortable with adult films, a porn company in Australia is going to court this Thursday to fight the current system of film classification, as reported by Reuters. As it currently stands in Australia, film ratings fall into three major categories. G ratings are applied to a film that would be open to anyone, an R rating is given for films that contain violent or disturbing images, and finally an X rating is given to any sexually explicit film; which brings with it a heavily restricted distribution policy. So while it isn't illegal to watch or own pornographic films, only two territories (including the capital Canberra) can legally sell pornographic films.

Adult film company AdultShop.com Limited is asking the Federal Court to overturn the X category, arguing that "The Office of Film and Literature Classification is required to take into account current community standards in relation to explicit erotic films,". The company commissioned a survey back in September from ACNielsen that "found 70% of Australian adults were not offended by explicit erotic films and 76% thought they should be available on a restricted basis." Already, family groups are concerned that if the ban were lifted, porn could start appearing on the shelves of local video stores and shops. But until the court rules, Australians can get their porn the same way everybody else does -- the Internet.

Back in 1989, writer-director Steven Soderbergh crashed onto the scene with his film Sex, Lies, and Videotape; pic later went on to win the Golden Palm at Cannes and was nominated for an original screenplay Oscar. So, it's only fitting that 18 years later Soderbergh would receive a jury summons in the mail (yes, just like the rest of us) -- requiring him to head to the courthouse and await further instructions -- for a case that eerily mirrors the title of his break-out film.

The case in question is that of a 40-year-old teacher who has plead not guilty after being accused of statutory rape and sodomy of two teenage boys. She's currently on leave from the school and claims to be innocent ... but there's always that chance she's lying about all that sex. After answering a few questions from the prosecutor and defense attorney, the judge dismissed Soderbergh when the director said he was too busy to participate (even though the defense attorney argued to keep the high-profile filmmaker there; apparently, they thought he would make a good juror).

Sure, we're not all shooting films about the Argentinian revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, but I imagine the rest of the folks in that room had better things to do. Unfortunately, no one bothered to ask Soderbergh if he planned to acquire the school teacher's life rights, round up a bunch of non-actors and shoot a low-budget digital film for HDNet Films and 2929 Productions. I don't know about you, but that would've been my first question.

Eighteen-year-old Haley Joel Osment pleaded no contest in court yesterday, and the judge didn't offer him a chance to Pay it Forward. Osment will serve three years probation, serve 60 hours in an alcohol rehabilitation program, attend 26 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings over a six month period, and pay $1500 in fines. Osment, who fractured a rib and injured his shoulder during an accident in July which involved him flipping a 1995 Saturn after crashing into a brick mailbox outside of Los Angeles, also had a .16 blood alcohol content (twice the legal limit) and a quantity of marijuana.

Osment's film Home of the Giants is currently in post-production and should be released later this year or in early 2007, so what will this mean for the teenage star? He doesn't have a next film lined up, which isn't too uncommon, but his last film was Secondhand Lions, which performed poorly at the box office in 2003 (although I highly enjoyed the Michael Caine and Robert Duvall pairing). He's done a lot of voiceover work since then, but this might put his live-action career on the skids for awhile. He's fallen a long way since his Oscar nominated performance in The Sixth Sense.

While it could bring trouble for the young actor, high-profile arrests in Hollywood have often proven to boost careers, just look at Hugh Grant, Russell Crowe, Robert Downey Jr., Nick Nolte, and Mel Gibson. While the jury is still out on how Mel will ultimately be affected, all of the other actors have enjoyed success after their days in court.

What do you think? Will this hurt or harm his career?

More Haley Joel Osment on Cinematical:

BREAKING: Haley Joel Osment in Serious Car Crash

Haley Joel Heads to Jail?

A software-based company in San Francisco has released a new program that can censor DVDs on the fly. It uses an online movie database of existing "safe cuts," or you can upload your own. Their player then uses these cuts to generate a "cutlist," which plays the movie according to that list in real-time, effectively censoring it. This process does not create or leave behind a hard copy of the altered film, it edits everything in the background, splicing together a new version of the film as you watch it, leaving you with the original movie intact after viewing.

This differs from an earlier lawsuit against a company called CleanFlicks which was upheld in court because it was decided that they caused "irreparable injury to the creative artistic expression in the copyrighted movies," by actually taking your DVD, and creating a "clean" copy of it with all the sex and profanity edited out. Basically, they sent you a duplicate that they created, with none of the bad stuff in it, meaning they physically alter the original movie content on the actual media.

Another company, ClearPlay, provides a similar service through a standalone DVD player that has filters built in to screen out portions of the movie the viewer finds objectionable. Since they don't change the movie itself, they have been safe from lawsuits, so far.

Now that the initial uproar following his drunken exploits has (somewhat) died down, Mel Gibson must turn from dealing with public accusations to those of the legal variety. According to press reports, the actor has now been officially charged with three violations: "Driving under the influence of alcohol, having an elevated blood-alcohol level and an open container of liquor in his car." Though a guilty finding could theoretically result in up to six months in prison, first-time DUI offenders rarely find themselves in prison, at least not for very long. A more likely punishment for the offenses -- given Gibson's apologies, it's unlikely he'll suddenly deny his guilt -- is a fine, possibly accompanied by community service.

Gibson's arraignment is scheduled for September 28.

A woman named Lucyna Turyk-Wawrynowicz, who worked as a maid for several Hollywood stars, pled guilty in a New York court yesterday to stealing from most of them. Among her big cheese victims were Robert De Niro's wife (from whom Turyk-Wawrynowicz took a pair of earrings worth almost $100,000) and Candice Bergen, whose leather jacket and several cameras were stolen. Even more alarming than the thievery, though, was the fact that, when Bergen confronted Turyk-Wawrynowicz about her action, the woman threatened to accuse Bergen's husband of sexual harassment if Bergen dared go to the police. That, my friends, is balls.

In the end, though, it was the fault of her victims if Turyk-Wawrynowicz stole from them. According to the high-class thief, "I only stole from people who didn't treat me with respect." Basically, that means that Isabella Rossellini has been confirmed as the coolest woman on earth, because she's the only employer whose stuff Turyk-Wawrynowicz left alone.

All of this is interesting and all, but here's my question: how does a 35-year-old woman get a group of clients like that? Did they all live in the same building, or something? It's just bizarre.