Reuters Entertainment News Summary

Following is a summary of current entertainment news briefs. Oppression and its opponents shape a political Berlinale

Abuse of power, state oppression and the struggle faced by those who seek to challenge it in countries from Russia and Brazil to the United States are key themes in this year's Berlin Film Festival, for which the final line-up was announced on Tuesday. This year's edition of the festival, which has never been shy of broaching sensitive political themes, highlighted Brazilian films in the program that had anticipated the country's hard swing right in last year's presidential election. John Malkovich to play disgraced movie mogul in new Mamet play

Actor John Malkovich will take the starring role in a new play by Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet about a disgraced Hollywood studio head, a story he said was written partly in reaction to the scandal engulfing film producer Harvey Weinstein. Speaking to BBC Radio on Tuesday, Malkovich described "Bitter Wheat", which opens in London in the summer, as "a black farce about a very badly behaved movie mogul", who he said was "not particularly" Weinstein. The producer will go on trial in New York in May on charges of sexually assaulting two women. Jake Gyllenhaal finds art can kill in 'Velvet Buzzsaw'

Actor Jake Gyllenhaal plays a snooty art critic in Netflix Inc movie "Velvet Buzzsaw," a satirical thriller that turns bloody when he and others try to profit from the work of a recently deceased artist. Gyllenhaal portrays Morf Vandewalt, a critic who starts seeing bizarre images in the paintings he is writing about. Assault on 'Empire' actor Smollett investigated as hate crime

Chicago police said on Tuesday they were investigating an assault on "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett as a possible hate crime after two men yelled racial and homophobic slurs and wrapped a rope around his neck. The 36-year-old African-American actor, who is gay, was reported to be in good condition after taking himself to a hospital after the incident early on Tuesday, police said. Michael Jackson's family calls new documentary 'public lynching'

The family of Michael Jackson on Monday described reaction to a new documentary about alleged child sex abuse by the late singer as a "public lynching" and said he was "100 percent innocent" of such accusations. The statement followed the premiere at the Sundance film festival on Friday of "Leaving Neverland," in which two men, now in their 30s, say they were befriended by the "Thriller" singer and sexually abused by him starting from when they were 7 and 10 years old.