No distractions for Jack

Hong Kong – Actor Jack Nicholson told a Hong Kong newspaper that he avoided watching the local crime thriller “Infernal Affairs” when he was shooting the Hollywood remake, “The Departed,” directed by Martin Scorsese.

“I wanted to concentrate on Scorsese’s movie, and what it was going to become as we went through the process,” Nicholson was quoted as saying in the Sunday edition of the South China Morning Post.

“We were reconceiving as we went and, from the beginning, that’s what made this different,” he said.

“Infernal Affairs,” which starred Cannes best actor winner Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Hong Kong heartthrob Andy Lau, is about a police officer who goes undercover in a Hong Kong gang and a local gangster who infiltrates the police.

Apart from Nicholson, the Hollywood remake also features Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen and Alec Baldwin.

Dream come true for U2 fans

Dublin, Ireland – A select few fans of Irish rock group U2 found what they were looking for when they won the right to have copies of U2’s new book signed by all four band members.

Interest in Saturday’s book signing by Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen proved so intense that organizers had to restrict access to 250 fans, who won tickets through a lottery on U2’s official Web site and via competitions on radio stations across Ireland.

All 250 were waiting inside Eason’s bookshop, the biggest in Ireland, when the famous four arrived to put their signatures to copies of “U2byU2,” a coffee-table book that went on international sale Thursday. Unusually, Bono made no formal comments and journalists were not admitted to the private signing, although photographers were allowed.

Today, U2 is scheduled to perform alongside Green Day in New Orleans’ Superdome.