NEW YORK | Tue Aug 7, 2012 10:16pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Judith Crist, a popular American film critic whose acerbic commentary helped herald a new era of film critics at newspapers and media outlets across the United States, died on Tuesday. She was 90.

Her son, Steven Crist, said his mother died in New York after a long illness.

Crist began her career as a journalist and film critic at the New York Herald Tribune in 1945, eventually becoming its full-time critic, the first woman to hold such a post at a major U.S. newspaper, according to the Los Angeles Times. She worked for two decades at the Trib before becoming New York magazine's first film critic. She was the film reviewer for NBC's Today show from 1964 to 1973.

Crist's more famous blunt and witty comments, directed at movies including "The Sound of Music" and "Cleopatra," provoked filmmaker Billy Wilder to quip, "Inviting her to review one of your pictures is like inviting the Boston Strangler to massage your neck."

Film critic Roger Ebert told the Chicago Tribune in 1999 that "the high profile of film critics can be traced to Judith Crist at the New York Herald Tribune in the early '60s."

He said her attack on "Cleopatra" led to her being banned from screenings by Fox, a gesture that "led to every newspaper in the country saying, 'Hey, we ought to get a real movie critic.'"

Crist was an adjunct professor at the Columbia School of Journalism from 1958 until last February, teaching critical and expository writing.

She was married for 47 years to William B. Crist, a public-relations executive and educator who died in 1993. She is survived by her son and two nieces, Helen McGough of Seattle and Edith Klein of Toronto.

(Reporting by Christine Kearney; editing by Prudence Crowther)

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n" readability="105">Aug 9 (Reuters) - Early in 2012 President Barack Obama responded to critics of his multi-billion-dollar green technology initiative by saying he was "not going to cede the wind or the solar or the battery industry to China."

Six months later, he faces that very real possibility for the U.S. car battery industry, a once-high flying sector buttressed by generous federal grants, but struggling with a green car market that has fallen far short of expectations.

A123 Systems Inc on Wednesday became the second U.S. government-backed battery maker this year to go overseas for a lifeline - and it turned to China. Auto parts supplier Wanxiang Group will take a controlling interest and invest $450 million in the Massachusetts-based battery maker, which faced running out of cash by the year-end.

Earlier this year, Ener1 Inc, another battery maker that received a government green technology grant, emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy under the control of Russian investor Boris Zingarevich. New York-based Ener1 is also a joint-venture partner in China with a Wanxiang subsidiary.

In the past three years, U.S. battery makers, anticipating consumer demand for green cars that never materialized, have over built production capacity, often with government funding.

Electric vehicle and hybrid sales for the first seven months of the year totaled 270,000, representing only 3 percent of total U.S. car sales, according to the green-car website Hybridcars.com.

As part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 's E lectric Drive Vehicle Battery and Component Manufacturing Initiative, A123 was awarded a grant of $249.1 million. Ener1 subsidiary EnerDel was awarded $118.5 million to manufacture advanced lithium-ion batteries for electric and hybrid vehicles.

A123 promised to create 38,000 U.S. jobs, including 5,900 at its own plants. A123 said on Thursday it has 1,300 workers.

Theodore O'Neill, a former equities analyst with Wunderlich Securities, said A123 "built a factory that's big enough to meet demand that's probably not going to materialize until 2020 ... They built it much larger than the market turned out to need."

FINDING 'PARTNER' FOR U.S. JOBS

That kind of underperformance provides new fodder for Obama's opponents in the Republican Party with just three months until election day.

Obama has spent months battling critics of the administration's green-tech initiative in the wake of the high-profile bankruptcy of solar-panel maker Solyndra.

"It's not going to be a smooth, easy ride ... Some companies will fail," he said in his State of the Union speech in January.

But tempering expectations has done little to quiet the critics in Washington, who ramped up their attacks on Thursday with the added accusation of putting technology in Chinese hands.

"Once again it appears the Department of Energy and the Obama administration have failed to secure sensitive taxpayer-funded intellectual property from being transferred to a foreign adversary, which raises serious national security issues," said Rep. Cliff Stearns. Stearns is a Florida Republican and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

A123 spokesman Dan Borgasano said on Thursday that, with Wanxiang's bid to take control of the battery company, "our intention is to continue to build in the United States and reach certain job levels. We think we found a partner to help us do that ... I don't think we'll necessarily be making hard and fast job projections."

After it received the DOE grant, Ener 1 said in early 2010 that it planned to create 1,400 jobs at its Indianapolis battery plant. Today, the plant employs around 250. The plant was designed to produce battery packs for up to 600,000 hybrid vehicles.

The companies' struggles with over capacity are typical of an industry whose fortunes are tied directly to those of electric and hybrid vehicle manufacturers.

"There was a bit of a rush to put in capacity that really wasn't justified by the events as they turned out," said Tom Gage, president of EV Grid, an infrastructure company based in Palo Alto, California. "In retrospect (the industry) was over-optimistic in terms of projecting the rate of growth for demand for car batteries."

Charles Ebinger, head of the energy security initiative at the Brookings Institution, said controversies surrounding government-backed companies such as A123 will make lawmakers hesitant to support expanded funding of clean energy, especially with federal budget battles looming.

"I think it's going to slow down," Ebinger said. "It's going to be increasingly difficult to argue for subsidies for any sector."

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Universal's effort to reboot one of its marquee franchises takes center stage this weekend as The Bourne Legacy opens five years after the previous installment.

Jay Roach's R-rated comedy The Campaign and David Frankel's dramedy Hope Springs also enter the fray, but all three new titles will have to compete with the 2012 Summer Olympics, which heads into its homestretch culminating with Sunday's Closing Ceremony.

PHOTOS: Behind the Scenes of THR's Jeremy Renner Cover Shoot

Sony's Hope Springs, starring Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones and Steve Carell, bowed Wednesday and is predicting a modest five-day opening in the $16 million to $17 million range.

Bourne Legacy -- featuring Jeremy Renner as new leading man Aaron Cross -- is widely expected to wrest the weekend crown from The Dark Knight Rises, which has dominated the box office for three consecutive weekends.

Along with Renner, other newcomers to the Bourne franchise include Rachel Weisz and Edward Norton; returning actors include Albert Finney, Joan Allen and David Strathairn.

Tracking suggests Bourne Legacy will open in the $40 million range, a solid number considering the departure of franchise star Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass. This time it's Bourne scribe Tony Gilroy in the director's chair.

COVER STORY: Jeremy Renner: $5 Million for 'Bourne,' Advice From Tom Cruise, Brutally Honest About Fame

Threequel The Bourne Ultimatum debuted to $69.3 million in August 2007, while sequel The Bourne Supremacy opened to $52.3 million in 2004. Franchise starter The Bourne Identity debuted to $27.1 million in 2002.

Gilroy, who also directed Duplicity and Michael Clayton, wrote or co-wrote the first three Bourne films and co-wrote Bourne Legacy with his brother Dan Gilroy.

Relativity Media partnered with Universal in financing the $125 million movie. Returning Bourne producers are Frank Marshall, Pat Crowley, Ben Smith and Jeffrey Weiner.

Bourne Legacy is opening in a number of foreign countries, many of them Asian markets.

Box-office observers expect Campaign, from Warner Bros., to open in the $22 million to $25 million range domestically.

PHOTOS: 'The Campaign' Premiere: Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis Celebrate Their Political Comedy

The pic, starring Will Ferrell and Zack Galifianakis and timed to the U.S. presidential and congressional elections, is incredibly raunchy and features two candidates vying to represent their North Carolina district on Capitol Hill.

Costing less than $60 million to produce, Campaign is showing good traction with moviegoers under age 35. Ferrell produced the pic with his partner Adam McKay, Galifianakis and Roach.

The comedy has a shot at beating fellow Warners title The Dark Knight Rises, which has grossed $367 million to date in North America, for the No. 2 spot at the domestic box office. 

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n">Aug 10 (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp has considered buying Research In Motion's enterprise division, Bloomberg reported On Friday, citing two unnamed sources.

IBM made an informal approach for the enterprise business that operates the servers used for supporting BlackBerry email and messaging services, one of the sources said, according to Bloomberg. The report said no talks were currently underway.

Under the leadership of new chief executive, Thorsten Heins, RIM has hired bankers for a strategic review that could include a potential sale and partnerships for its technology.

The Bloomberg report said the BlackBerry maker has not yet received any offers for its phone business or for the whole company.

RIM virtually invented mobile email with its first BlackBerry devices more than a decade ago, but its market share has evaporated as consumers have flocked to Apple Inc's iPhone and devices based on Google Inc's Android system. RIM has lost over 70 percent in market capitalization in the last year alone.

RIM officials declined to comment to Reuters while IBM officials were not immediately available.

On Thursday, South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co said it has not considered acquiring RIM or licensing the embattled BlackBerry phone maker's new mobile operating system, despite an earlier report from an influential analyst floating the idea.

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Sony's sci-fi action epic Total Recall is in a close race with holdover The Dark Knight Rises at the Friday box office, with each pic on track to gross in the $9 million to $10.5 million range.

PHOTOS: 'Total Recall' Premiere

It's possible that Total Recall -- headlining Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel -- could win the Friday race and even cross $11 million, but most observers believe Dark Knight Rises will pull ahead on Saturday and stay atop the domestic box office for a third weekend in a row.

Total Recall, based both on the 1990 Paul Verhoeven film and the short story by Philip K. Dick, is expected to earn in the high-$20 million range for the weekend, while Dark Knight Rises is slotted to gross $31 million to $34 million. Some believe Total Recall also could cross $30 million, though.

The weekend's other new entry is Fox's family pic Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days. The threequel is expected to gross $6.5 million to $7.5 million on Friday for a weekend debut north of $17.5 million.

VIDEO: 'Total Recall' Star Jessica Biel Says 'There Was Nothing Girly' About Fight Scene with Kate Beckinsale

Research tracking firm NRG continues to advise studios that 20 percent of the moviegoing audience remains skittish about going to see a movie in the wake of the Aurora theater shooting during a midnight screening of Dark Knight Rises on July 20. And the London Olympics are proving a huge draw.

Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Rises, from Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures, has earned north of $600 million worldwide in its first two weeks, a massive number even though the film continues to pace behind its 2008 predecessor The Dark Knight.

Overseas, Universal's Ted is making headlines as it opens in another 10 markets, including Germany, where it grossed $1.2 million on Thursday to top the box office. And in the U.K., the R-rated comedy from writer-director Seth MacFarlane earned a stellar $5.3 million in its first two days of previews.

Ted has been rolling out slowly overseas, earning an impressive $54.5 million to date.

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People walk past a wall mural painted by Brazilian graffiti artists Os Gemeos in Boston August 8, 2012.

BOSTON | Wed Aug 8, 2012 10:52pm EDT

BOSTON (Reuters) - Like many famous works of art before it, a colorful mural that dominates a park across from Boston's main train station has stirred some controversy.

The 70-foot-by-70-foot (21-metre-by-21-metre) painting by Brazilian twin brothers Otavio and Gustafo Pandolfo, known as Os Gemeos, depicts a character wearing bright, mismatched clothes, his face wrapped in what appears to be a scarf except for his squinting eyes.

The work, which will be exhibited until November 2013, became a flashpoint when a local Fox television station quoted passersby criticizing the masked cartoon-like figure, which some found menacing, saying it should be removed.

The mural is painted on an air intake structure on the Greenway in downtown Boston's Dewey Square. The giant piece by Os Gemeos, which is Portuguese for "The Twins," is part of their first solo U.S. exhibition, now on display at the nearby Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston.

Jill Medvedow, director of the museum, played down the controversy. "This work of art is a joyful addition to Boston's skyline. With tremendous mastery of scale, painterly skill and vibrant patterning, Os Gemeos brings urban energy and a rich tradition of Brazilian creativity to Dewey Square in Boston. Good art gets people talking," she said.

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino also tried to defuse the issue.

"We don't need somebody out there to divide us and saying that's a racist thing, that's against a religion. It isn't," he said. "That was made to show a young boy out there and that's what I believe it is."

The mural was funded by the Institute of Contemporary art and private donations to the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy, an organization that takes care of five of the city's parks including the one at Dewey Square.

Residents enjoying themselves on the Greenway on Wednesday, where the band Receita de Samba provided additional Brazilian flavor, mostly praised the work for its originality and beauty.

"It's nice," said Loreno St. Dubois, a 58-year-old postal employee from South Boston, who added that he could understand the negatives reactions to it.

Ben Gebo, 27, a freelance photographer hired by the conservancy to document the mural's creation, said as the piece was painted its meaning changed.

"I see it as an interesting artwork. I'm still not exactly sure what it's supposed to be," he said. "It's really up to the eye of the beholder. It definitely draws attention and gets people talking, which I think is the important thing."

(Reporting By Joseph O'Leary; editing by Ros Krasny and Patricia Reaney)

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TOKYO | Thu Aug 9, 2012 8:15pm EDT

TOKYO Aug 10 (Reuters) - Sharp Corp's leading bank creditors are likely to demand a more sweeping restructuring at the struggling Japanese TV and display maker as a condition for extending new loans, said people involved in the ongoing talks.

Sharp's two main lenders, Mizuho Corporate Bank and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU), are poring over the company's restructuring plan to determine how much it needs to survive as it also renegotiates terms of an investment by Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry.

"Compared with Sony and Panasonic, Sharp's restructuring is not enough," said a senior banker at one of the two banks. "We will work out a plan by around mid-September to come up with a loan facility."

The banker and others involved in reviewing Sharp's business outlook declined to be named as those discussions are private. Spokespeople at both Mizuho and BTMU said their banks will support Sharp. A Sharp spokeswoman declined to comment.

The stakes are high for Sharp.

TOO FEW CUTS?

Shares in the century-old Osaka-based firm have slumped by around two-thirds since March, when Hon Hai, the world's leading contract electronics manufacturer and part of Foxconn Technology, agreed to buy around a 10 percent stake at 550 yen a share. As Sharp's condition has weakened - its shares last traded at 191 yen - Hon Hai has moved to renegotiate the March deal that would have seen it invest $844 million.

Last week, Sharp warned of a full-year net loss of 250 billion yen ($3.19 billion), eight times larger than its previous loss forecast. It is also cutting around 5,000 jobs, around a tenth of its workforce, as it battles weak demand for its Aquos TVs and competition from rivals led by South Korea's Samsung Electronics.

While the job cuts at Sharp are the first in six decades, some bankers question whether the restructuring is tough enough.

"The company has never done a restructuring before. It's like a wet mop. There's a lot of water that could be wrung out," said another senior banker at one of the main banks.

Hon Hai has said it is open to taking a larger stake in Sharp or renegotiating the share price of its planned investment. Both companies are suppliers to Apple Inc, and Hon Hai Chairman Terry Guo has said their partnership is an opportunity to challenge Samsung, Apple's main rival and one of its major suppliers.

At least one senior banker at one of Sharp's main banks did not rule out Hon Hai taking a larger share in Sharp that would give it board representation - though it's not yet known if any such proposal will emerge from the ongoing talks.

More immediately, Sharp faces a refinancing challenge.

In addition to the redemption of 200 billion yen ($2.6 billion) in convertible bonds due in September next year, Sharp has 360 billion yen ($4.59 billion) in short-term commercial paper. The cost of protecting Sharp's debt from default for five years has soared in the past month. Also, Markit data shows that 80.5 percent of Sharp shares available to be borrowed by short sellers betting on price falls were out on loan as of Tuesday, up from 75.6 percent the day before.

Mizuho Corp, part of Mizuho Financial Group, and BTMU, the core unit of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, each have outstanding loans to Sharp of around 120 billion yen as of end-March, according to a creditor's memo seen by Reuters. Major life insurers also have extended loans to Sharp, including Nippon Life's 21.5 billion yen and Dai-ichi Life's 8.5 billion yen, according to the memo.

Officials at Sharp have contacted some life insurers recently, seeking meetings for a business review, said one person with knowledge of those talks.

MORE ENGAGED

The ongoing renegotiations between Sharp and Hon Hai make it tougher for Sharp's lenders as they don't know how much of the Taiwanese investment will materialise. Taiwan's Economics Ministry on Thursday pressed Hon Hai for more detail on the tie-up, saying the initial agreement looked expensive. Hon Hai needs ministry approval to inject cash into Sharp, a foreign company.

Sharp also has a reputation as a fiercely independent company and does not have as tight a relationship as other big Japanese firms with its main banks. That might not help in working on a turnaround plan, some bankers said.

Sharp, though, has become more engaged with its lenders, with its chairman Mikio Katayama meeting heads of BTMU and Mizuho in recent weeks, though the company has not yet disclosed all the data the banks are seeking, say people involved in the talks.

On top of deeper cost cuts, Sharp could look at additional asset sales, such as its solar panel and appliance units, bankers have said.

"Personally, I think it's fine for Hon Hai to take a 20-30 percent stake in Sharp. It would help Sharp's credit status," said a senior banker at one of the main banks.

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