Director: Owen Wilson doing better in recovery

Owen Wilson is doing well as he recovers from an apparent suicide attempt, and is even making colleagues laugh, the director of his latest film said Monday.

“Obviously he has been through a lot this week,” said Wes Anderson, who directed Wilson in “The Darjeeling Limited,” one of the films in competition for the Venice Film Festival's top award.

“I can tell you he has been doing very well, he has been making us laugh,” Anderson told a news conference to promote the film.

“When he is ready he's going to speak for himself much better than any of us could,” the director said, asking that the actor's privacy be respected.

Wilson and Anderson have worked together for more than a decade, in pictures including “The Royal Tenenbaums.”

The 38-year-old Wilson was taken by ambulance to a hospital last week after police responded to a call about a suicide attempt at his Santa Monica home. The day after he was hospitalized, he issued a statement asking for privacy so he could “receive care and heal.”

In “Darjeeling,” Wilson plays a distraught man - bandaged throughout the film - who other characters imply has attempted suicide.

Wilson plays one of three brothers who haven't said a word to each other in a year and who take a train journey across India in an attempt to find themselves and their relationship again.

Rhymes, Olsen, Jones at Diddy's White Party

White was not only de rigueur at a star-saturated party thrown by Sean “Diddy” Combs at his Long Island home - it was strictly enforced.

The hip hop mogul's annual White Party, which he has held in St. Tropez in recent years, featured a white carpet at his East Hampton house to go along with the white dress code.

“This party is up there with the top three that I've thrown,” Combs said of the party. “It's a party that has legendary status. It's hard to throw a party that lives up to its legend.”

Mariah Carey, Busta Rhymes, Donna Karan, Ashley Olsen, Star Jones and Tommy Lee were among the guests who showed up.

But those who failed to abide by the dress code found themselves told to go home and change, including the wife of Billy Joel, Katie Lee. She had gone to the party dressed in a shade of cream, but that did not win over Combs' fashion police. Turned away, she opted to go home.

Combs wore white sneakers with silver detailing, a white shirt and pants and a gold medallion.

Foster finds similarities between movies

Parallels to Martin Scorsese's dark classic “Taxi Driver” led Jodie Foster to take a role in her new movie, “The Brave One.”

The 1976 film portrays a cabby driven to madness amid a crime-ridden and debt-filled New York City climate. The newer film is a story about living with fear in New York after Sept. 11.

“When I first read the script, honestly, it didn't remind me enough of ‘Taxi Driver,”' Foster said in an interview published in this week's Newsweek. “That was one of my issues with it. There was all this room for something more beautiful.”

Foster, who was in “Taxi Driver” as a 13-year-old, stars as Erica Bain, a radio host who survives an attack that kills her fiance. Afterward, she learns to use a gun and finds situations in which to use it.

- From wire reports