Former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham is to serve as a guest judge on hit US television show “American Idol” following the departure of Paula Abdul, network executives said Thursday.

Pop star Beckham would join the panel of judges along with singer-songwriter Katy Perry during the audition phase of the show, the Fox Broadcasting production that is the highest-rating program on US television.

Other pop stars would join the four member panel, Fox Broadcasting Entertainment chairman Peter Rice said, without identifying them.

“Between now and January we’ll come up with a more permanent solution,” Rice told journalists. Guest judges would serve alongside regulars Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and Kara DioGuardi, he said.

Rice said the departure of Abdul, confirmed on Tuesday as the show prepared for its ninth season, would bring a “different dynamic” to the programme.

“There will be a different element, a different energy,” Rice said, revealing that Abdul had been offered an improved contract after a previous agreement which expired in May.

“We have been talking to her for most of the season,” Rice said. “We very much wanted her to return. In the past few weeks, the negotiations have come to a conclusion.

“We made an offer that we feel was very fair to Paula. It was a substantial raise on the money she’s been paid in the past and Paula has decided not return. It is something that was not our choice.”

“American Idol” was exported to the United States from Britain in 2002, rapidly establishing itself as the most watched show on US television and a pop-culture phenomenon.

The program aims to unearth the next big singing talent and past contestants such as Carrie Underwood and Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Hudson have gone on to forge successful careers in the entertainment industry.

Abdul meanwhile is being tipped to resurface as a judge on another US television hit “So You Think You Can Dance.”

“I don’t know anyone who has the experience she has — dancer, performer, choreographer and judge,” the show’s executive producer Nigel Lythgoe said.

“I have been trying to get her since season one.”

I have a clear memory of that era and could easily detect which scenes were set up and which were spontaneous. Of these, only the Henan village scene looks untainted by manipulation. Each of the farmers shows an expression of either curiosity or hesitancy, which is very realistic for that time. Of course, the candid-camera shots of bikers and pedestrians are gems.

We must remember that 1972, when the “cultural revolution” (1966-76) had gripped the nation, was not China’s brightest moment. Jiang Qing (Madam Mao) was in control of the arts and her understanding of politically correct aesthetics, as reflected in the model operas, was specific: The hero must have the spotlight, and the villain (a class enemy such as a landlord) must not stand straight or get proper lighting. People (the good ones) do not walk or saunter; they march with fists held tight, with a passion for revolution and hatred for class enemies.

Although his Chinese hosts mostly staged what Antonioni saw, the Italian auteur highlighted moments when people were in low spirits. Any competent artist or journalist would be drawn to people who are not acting but just being themselves. They could be laughing, crying or simply have a blank stare. But in that era of extreme propaganda, each facial expression was magnified to symbolize the whole country. Thus, laughter equals great achievement, crying is pre-1949 misery, and a blank stare means they are numb.

Jiang and her ilk were not satisfied until every class-correct Chinese person on screen was ecstatic. Anything less would be “insulting to the Chinese people”. That’s something even the left-leaning Antonioni could never grasp.

Chung Kuo has historical value. Behind the scenes, the struggle is palpable between those who followed Jiang’s dogma of filmmaking, and those inside the Party apparatus who wanted to seize the moment and end all the madness of political campaigns. Sadly, the movie was hijacked and turned into a salvo against reform.

Although the excesses of those days are no longer there, traces of the mentality remain. When I go out to the provinces on assignments, some official handlers love to put words into the mouths of interviewees. They are afraid that those I interview may say something that puts the place in a bad light. In a sense, they see each person I talk to as the epitome of that city or province. They do not understand that real people giving real answers will, in the long term, give their hometown both a good name and real texture.

Sometimes, I think that the Oscar-winning documentary From Mao to Mozart, if shown in China during the 1980s, would have been seen as an affront. It has footage of ordinary people in ordinary situations, which many Chinese at that time would interpret as “backward”. Looking back, it was a lifestyle. We now wax nostalgic.

A few years ago, a Hollywood movie was condemned by some Chinese filmgoers for showing Shanghai buildings with clotheslines outside the window. I guess they would have wanted to see every household with a power-hungry dryer.

We are more open-minded today, but there’ll always be those who - subconsciously or not -want every China-related film to be essentially a commercial for tourism.

Italian actress Maria Grazia Cucinotta poses on the beach during a photocall at the 66th Venice Film Festival September 1, 2009.[Agencies]

VENICE  - The Venice film festival opens on Wednesday with Italian movie “Baaria,” an epic Sicilian drama taking in Fascism, World War Two and Communism and billed as one of the country’s biggest movies ever.

Organizers will hope director Giuseppe Tornatore’s entry wins over audiences after a series of Italian disappointments in recent years, although it is Hollywood which looks set to grab most of the headlines during the 11-day cinema showcase.

The world’s oldest film festival, which runs from September 2-12, has succeeded in luring a string of big names to the sun-drenched Lido waterfront this year as it fights to compete with rival competitions around the world.

Matt Damon appears in “The Informant!,” in which he plays a crooked company whistleblower, and Michael Moore brings “Capitalism: A Love Story,” a documentary attacking corporate greed and analyzing the recession.

They are expected to be joined on the red carpet by Nicolas Cage, George Clooney, Oliver Stone, Charlize Theron, Eva Mendes, Richard Gere and Sylvester Stallone among others.

Venice is banking on Hollywood heavyweights, and a selection which critics say looks strong on paper, to help it compete with other festivals, most notably Toronto with which it overlaps, and generate early buzz as the awards season approaches.

“I think (Venice director) Marco Mueller realized in particular this year he really has to put together a strong program because a lot of the international press will continue to be leaving and that would be a disaster,” said Jay Weissberg, a critic at trade publication Variety.

“That’s why he’s put in so many American titles because that obviously gets more press.”

As well as economic meltdown, dominant themes this year include horror, with George Romero presenting “Survival of the Dead,” and animation in the form of a lifetime award for “Toy Story” and “Cars” creator John Lasseter.

CLOONEY AND CAGE

Clooney, who has a home in Italy and is a local favorite, appears in “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” about a reporter who stumbles across a U.S. military unit in Iraq which employs paranormal powers on its missions.

Author Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic vision of the world in “The Road” makes it to the big screen, with Viggo Mortensen starring with Theron.

Cage appears in Werner Herzog’s “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” a remake of the 1992 movie directed by Abel Ferrara, who has publicly criticized the new version.

U.S. director Todd Solondz is in the main competition line-up of 23 films with “Life During Wartime,” and is up against entries that touch on issues including the 1982 war in Lebanon and recent Iranian protests.

Oliver Stone is expected on the red carpet with his documentary “South of the Border,” about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, while “Rambo” and “Rocky” star Stallone is to receive an award outside the main festival.

Reflecting Venice’s global reach, Egypt’s “The Traveler” starring Omar Sharif is in competition, as are pictures from China, Austria, Israel, Japan, France, Hong Kong and Germany.

Fashion is in focus again, with designer Tom Ford bringing his directorial debut “A Single Man” starring Colin Firth and Julianne Moore.

In all other categories, the win goes to the nominee who earns the most votes. But in the case of best picture, voters will be asked to rank their preference from 1 to 10, with 1 being best. It’s the same preferential voting system that the Academy uses in its nominating process — and that Australia uses in some of its elections.

The Academy opted to use the preferential system in the best picture race because it realized that with a field of 10 nominees — if support for the nominees was relatively evenly distributed among the 10 candidates — a winner could emerge with just over 600 votes out of the potential voting pool of 6,000 members.

The preferential system is designed to measure depth of support, since second- and third-place choices can be just as important as first-place choices.

Under the system, the ballots are first separated according to first-place choices. If one film wins a majority of 50%-plus-one among all first-place votes, it’s the winner. If not, then the film with the fewest numbers of first place votes is eliminated and those ballots are redistributed according to their second-place rankings. The process continues until one film has picked up a majority of the votes.

The process creates an added hurdle for Academy campaigners, who will have to work to ensure they pick up as much wide support from Academy members as possible, since earning the gold trophy won’t be a simple matter of amassing the most votes. The 82nd annual Academy Awards will be handed out in Hollywood on March 7.