The annual movie awards season dawned Wednesday as the National Board of Review, which traditionally hands out the year's first honors, named Finding Neverland, the biography of Peter Pan creator J.M. Barrie, the best film of the year. Jamie Foxx, who starred in another biopic -- about singer Ray Charles -- was voted best actor for Ray, and Annette Bening, best actress for her performance in Istvan Szabo's Being Julia. Michael Mann was named best director for Collateral. The stars of Closer -- Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, and Natalie Portman -- received an award for "ensemble acting." The film opens Friday.

"I believe to this day, whatever else I think of Michael Ovitz, he did not steal any money" from the Walt Disney Co., said Sanford Litvack, Disney's former general counsel on Wednesday. Litvack was testifying in his second day on the witness stand in a lawsuit by shareholders seeking to recover a $140-million severance payout to Ovitz. Attorneys for the shareholders bombarded his with questions about lavish gifts that Ovitz purchased at company expense while serving as Disney president in 1995 and 1996, about $69,000 related to the construction of a screening room and a security system at Ovitz's home, and about numerous plane trips that Ovitz took in the company jet -- even after he left the company -- and about Disney's decision to pay Ovitz $98,000 to buy his BMW when he joined the company, the price Ovitz paid for it months before. Litvack replied that many of the contested expenses were later discovered in a report produced for the company by PriceWaterhouseCoopers and were deducted from Ovitz's severance. Asked whether he believe it was inappropriate for Ovitz to use Disney jets for personal trips to the Caribbean, Litvack replied, "No, not unless he was stealing the airplanes." Eventually, he said, Ovitz was billed for those flights. The deal to buy the car, Litvack said, was part of the company's package to entice Ovitz to join Disney.

Providing another indication of the upturn in the fortunes of the Walt Disney Co. in recent months, the company on Wednesday announced its first dividend increase since 1998. In a statement, CEO Michael Eisner said: "Returning cash to investors remains an important part of our capital plan." The 24-cents-a-share dividend represents a 14 percent boost over last year's 21 cents.

Blockbuster said Wednesday that although it had sweetened its deal to buy the parent company of Hollywood Video, its offer was being thwarted by some members of Hollywood's board. The members have reportedly balked at Blockbuster's request to look at Hollywood's books without getting a "standstill requirement" in return that would bar Blockbuster from making an offer directly to Hollywood's shareholders. Blockbuster didn't indicate how much it would increase its offer but company chairman/CEO John Antioco said in a statement that Hollywood's requirement deprives its "shareholders of the opportunity to potentially receive greater value for their shares."

A Los Angeles man who used a device to access pay-TV movies via satellite illegally, record them on his computer, then copy them onto DVD discs and sell them on eBay was sentenced to three years' probation Wednesday. William Jefferson Philputt was also ordered to pay a fine of $817 to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and serve six months in home confinement. Meanwhile, it was reported that a Japanese businessman in Tokyo had received a three-year suspended sentence for posting A Beautiful Mind on an Internet peer-to-peer network. The MPAA hailed the outcome of the case as "a judicial milestone not only in Japan, but globally."

Warner Bros. has agreed to screen Oliver Stone's Alexander to a group of Greek lawyers who have threatened to seek a court order to block the screening of the film in Greece if they determine that it deviates from "academic truths" about Alexander the Great's sexuality. The film is due to open in Greece on Friday. In an interview with Reuters Television, one of the lawyers, Kostas Koutsoulelos, commented: "If there are these scenes referring to homosexual tendencies, then we will meet and decide to file a blocking order so that these scenes are removed."

Companies have been paying as much as $2 million -- nearly the price of a Super Bowl ad -- to have their products featured on NBC's The Apprentice, the Los Angeles Times reported today, citing no sources. The newspaper said that in some cases, the product-placement deals also include an agreement by the advertiser to buy traditional advertising time on the network. The Times pointed out that unlike 30-second ads, entire episodes have been built around some companies' products on the show and that those companies have been permitted to make decisions about how they are to be presented. Executive producer Mark Burnett told the newspaper that the presence of the ads "bolsters the show's credibility," and explained: "The Apprentice is supposed to be about business, so it's very appropriate to have these big companies with name brands testing these young guns who want to make it big." NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly said that the network has received no complaints about the strategy. "It's only when we put products out there in an awkward and clumsy way that it screams crass and commercialism," he said.

Tom Brokaw, who recently admitted that he had to struggle to retain his composure when reporting on the 9/11 attacks, nearly lost it as he bade farewell to his NBC Nightly News audience Wednesday. His voice and eyes betraying his emotion, Brokaw thanked them "for all that I have learned from you. That's been my richest reward." Earlier in his closing comments he remarked: "We've been through a lot together. Through dark days and nights and seasons of hope and joy. Whatever the story I had only one objective -- to get it right. When I failed it was personally painful." Brokaw, 64, will continue to front documentaries for the network, presumably under its Dateline banner, and has said that he will "report for duty" if a major story develops.

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer may not have been able to fly ahead of ABC's Lost Wednesday night, but the CBS animated classic wasn't far behind. ABC's hit drama recorded a 10.7 rating and a 17 share, making it the most-watched show of the night. But Rudolph wound up with an 8.2/13 -- not bad for a cartoon that debuted 40 years ago and has become a pre-Christmas tradition every year since. CBS ended up winning the final night of the November sweeps -- but just barely. In overall household ratings it tied with ABC, with both networks recording an identical 8.4/13. But in terms of total viewers, CBS was slightly ahead with 13.82 million to ABC's 13.01 million.

Tuesday's series debut of The Real Gilligan's Island on the TBS channel drew 4 million viewers at 8:00 p.m., more than those who tuned into Fox and UPN in that hour. A repeat of the reality show at 9:00 p.m. drew more than 3 million viewers, according to Nielsen Research, making it the most-watched show on basic cable for the night. It also scored strongly among adults 18-49.

A lawyer for a former Providence, RI tax official who was convicted of taking a bribe after being caught on tape in an FBI sting operation has admitted that he gave a copy of the tape to a local television reporter. The reporter, WJAR's Jim Taricani, is due to be sentenced Dec. 9 for criminal contempt for refusing to reveal his source. Joseph Bevilacqua Jr., the lawyer for former Tax Review Board Chairman Joseph Pannone, said that he provided the tape to Taricani but did not insist on confidentiality in return. In a statement, Taricani said Wednesday that he was "surprised and disappointed" by Bevilacqua's assertion. "I would never have jeopardized my health and reputation, and put my family and my company through this ordeal, if my source had not required a promise of confidentiality," he said.

ABC's 20/20 , which has been struggling to retain its audience following the departure of co-host Barbara Walters, has landed a potentially explosive interview with the head of a nutritional-supplement company that has been charged with selling steroids to top athletes. The network announced that Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) head Victor Conte would appear on the program one day before Conte's lawyer, Robert Holley, appeared in court to argue for a dismissal of the charges against his client because of pretrial publicity. In court, Asst. U.S. Attorney Jeff Nedrow held up a newspaper article about Conte's appearance on the television show. "You didn't know about this?" the judge asked Holley. The attorney replied that he had not been aware of the interview until he read about it in the newspaper. The judge denied the defense attorney's request.

The British Film Institute is planning to include a collection of restored classic television commercials in its archives under the banner "Making Advertising History." The BFI said that the restoration is being sponsored by the British subsidiary of Coca-Cola, which will work with advertising agencies to secure rights permits. Some of the ads were originally shown in movie theaters, including the earliest one in the collection, an 1897 ad for Dewar's scotch. Others include actors and musicians who became celebrities but who were little known when they appeared in the original spots. They include Michael Caine, Julie Andrews, and The Rolling Stones.