Pity the accused as Mr T turns up for jury duty

Plus: Michael Cera album release takes everyone by surprise; Jackie Chan admits his action-movie days are numbered; and movie from the Philippines takes top prize at Locarno.

Mr T escaped having to do jury duty. Jordan Strauss / Invision for Starlight Children's Foundation / AP Images

The A-Team and Rocky III star Mr T was his usual larger-than-life self as he waited outside the Rolling Meadows courthouse in suburban Chicago to be called for jury duty. Sporting his trademark Mohawk haircut and wearing an FBI sweatshirt and hat, but missing his traditional collection of gold chains, the actor, whose real name is Lawrence Tureaud, signed autographs and made his feelings known. Paraphrasing his famous catchphrase "I pity the fools", he said: "I pity the criminals today," as he explained he had been called as a potential juror for a trial on Friday. He said that he understood his duty and said it was not his style to shirk responsibilities. However, in the end, the criminals had a lucky escape as Mr T was not picked to sit in judgement. – AP

Michael Cera album release takes everyone by surprise

The Arrested Development and Superbad star Michael Cera released an indie folk album last week – quietly, in a way almost as unassuming as the actor himself. "I would record a lot of the songs in the middle of the night just at home. I never thought anyone would ever listen to them," he said. "It's really nice that people are paying any attention to it because there's a lot of stuff to listen to." The 26-year-old dropped the 18-song album, True That, on the Bandcamp website on August 8 but it went largely overlooked until Cera's actor friend Jonah Hill tweeted a link on Wednesday. The album, which streams for free and costs US$7 (Dh25) to download, includes airy, folky tracks, some just wordless fragments, some more fully fleshed out. Some songs are covers and others have borrowed sound samples from film and television. "I didn't want anyone to take it seriously or think that I was taking it seriously by it being a big thing," he said. – AP

Jackie Chan admits his action-movie days are numbered

The action-movie veteran Jackie Chan admits doing stunt work is "not like it used to be" as he no longer bounces back from the physical effort of performing big action scenes. "The next morning, you realise wow, it hurts," says the actor, who turned 60 this year. "Now my body tells me to slow down 30 per cent and probably in another two years, 20 more, then 50 per cent. So slowly, slowly, then I will tell the whole world, stop doing action." However, this did not stop him going all out for what he describes as his last big action movie, Chinese Zodiac. He gives his usual acrobatic display in which he becomes a human torpedo on wheels, fights in the air while skydiving and engages in his trademark hand-to-hand combat and physical comedy. "That's not special effects, that's not Iron Man, not Spider-Man, that's the real Jackie Chan," he says. But in future, he says he will start to take his foot off the gas. "Slowly, slowly I will let more people do it for me. Myself, I'll only do the tight shot, close shot, otherwise the big wide shot, I'll let someone else do it." – AP

Movie from Philippines takes top prize at Locarno Film Festival

From What Is Before, a five-and-a-half-hour film from the Philippines, scooped the coveted Golden Leopard prize at the 67th Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland on Saturday. Clocking in at 338 minutes, the black-and-white film from the director Lav Diaz beat 16 films to the festival's top prize. It tells of strange events at an isolated village in the Philippines in 1972 during the rule of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, when brutal militias roamed the countryside. The runner-up Special Jury Prize went to Listen up Philip by the American director Alex Ross Perry. Portugal's Pedro Costa won the best director gong for Cavalo Dinheiro (Horse Money). There were also awards for the actor Artem Bystrov for his part in the Russian film Durak (The Fool) and the French actress Ariane Labed for Fidelio (The Odyssey of Alice). – AFP