Another strike looms in the not so distant future perhaps…

Hollywood’s actors and studios are currently engaging in last-minute negotiation as tomorrow SAG’s labor pact with studios is set to expire and there is no announcement yet of a new three year deal despite AFTRA’s recent success with reaching an agreement with the studios.

SAG has 120,000 members and its president Alan Rosenberg said that they have taken no steps to initiate a strike authorization vote as of yet.

As far as the studios are concerned it can be said that virtually all film production has shut down because studios are concerned that they might have costly projects halted by a walkout mid-way through production.

Infamous rap star jewelery enabler, Jacob “The Jeweler” Arabov is headed to federal prison for lying to investigators wroking to stop a multistate drug ring.

The 42-year-old Russian immigrant was also ordered to pay a $50,000 fine and make $2 million in forfeiture payments to the government.

US District Judge Avern Cohn removed seven months from the prosecutors’ reccomendation citing Arabov’s extensive charity work.

Arabov said:

“I feel ashamed that I broke the laws of this country, a country that has been so good for me. I will carry this shame for the rest of my life.”

In 2005, police arrested the “king of bling” in his Manhattan jewelry shop and accused him and others of conspiring to launder about $270 million in drug profits for the “Black Mafia Family,” a Detroit-based crime ring that took root in the early 1990s.

The seven-year investigation resulted in the indictments of Arabov and at least 41 other people. Police say about 1,100 pounds of cocaine and $19 million in cash and other assets were seized beginning in 2000. Arabov begins his prison sentence on January 15, 2009.

Arabov has previously launched a line of religious-themed jewelry with Kanye West, who later named him in songs including “Diamonds From Sierra Leone,” in which Kanye asks: “These ain’t conflict diamonds, is they Jacob? Don’t lie to me man.” Arabov also manufactured Lil’ Kim’s line of Royalty watches.

R&B genius R. Kelly is acquitted on all counts by a Chicago jury at his child pornography trial.

The verdict came six years after the singer was first charged with appearing on a graphic video tape with a girl prosecutors say was 13-years-old at the time.

Both Kelly and the now 23-year-old (how is 6+13 =23?) alleged victim denied that they were on the tape and neither testified during the trial.

The prosecution’s “star” witness was a woman who said she regularly engaged in three-way sex with Kelly and the girl the prosecutors claimed was on the tape. Kelly’s defense attorneys claimed that the man on the tape didn’t have a large mole on his back and that Kelly does.

R. Kelly has previously faced 15 years in prison and his three biggest songs include “I Believe I Can Fly,” “Bump N’ Grind” and my personal favorite song of all time “Ignition.”

Italy’s biggest scum-bag producer Vittorio Cecchi Gori (producer of Academy Award winning film “Life is Beautiful“) was questioned today by Italian authorities because he’s been avoiding payment to creditors by moving money around his various companies in order to appear bankrupt.

Maintaining his innocence from Rome’s Regina Coeli jail where he is being held Cecchi Gori said:

“There has been a misunderstanding, and it will be cleared up.”

Cecchi Gori has long been associated with shady dealings. His Finmavi company was insolvent in 2006 with $927 million in debt. He took once prominent A.C. Fiorentina soccer club from succesful team in the mid-1990’s to bankruptcy in 2001 and His Finmavi holding company went bankrupt in 2006, with $927 million in debt, but his exhibition loop was excluded from the bankruptcy proceedings.

The once-dominant Italian production/distribution/exhibition outfit began its downward spiral in the mid-1990s when it branched out from film into TV and acquired the A.C. Fiorentina soccer club, which went belly up in 2001. And while police were searching for financial records at Ceccho Gori’s Rome house in 2001, they came across several grams of cocaine.

Despite this, Ceccho Gori was succesful this year with sexy teen romance film “Scusa ma ti chiamo amore” (Sorry If I Call You Love which has grossed $18 million in Italy.

The fate of the Los Angeles based Cecchi Gori Pictures shingle run by producer Gianni Nunnari however is not looking very optimistic.

All this is very interesting film material perhaps about the 66-year-old film producer who is the son of Mario Cecchi Gori (a now deceased Italian film producer of over 200 films.) In his heyday, Vittorio was also a Senator from the Italian’s People’s Party and an owner of Channel La7.

Cecchi Gori produced “Il Postino” which was also an Academy Award nominated film.