Protests planned as film opens

Protests planned as film opens

BANGKOK (AP): Leonardo DiCaprio's latest movie, The Beach, was savaged in the courtroom and by environmentalists on Tuesday ahead of its first screening in the country where it was made.

The screening and protests brought to a climax the year-long controversy over The Beach for the alleged destruction of a once- pristine island paradise that went into the making of it.

Environmentalists said hundreds of protesters would lynch DiCaprio in an effigy outside the Bangkok cinema where 20th Century Fox scheduled a preview Tuesday night for 600 viewers to raise money for the blind. The film opens to the general Thai public on Friday in 92 cinemas.

Meanwhile, a civil trial resumed against Fox and senior Thai officials stemming from a lawsuit over damage allegedly wrought to a national park during shooting by filmmakers making the location setting more cinematically beautiful.