Los Angeles - The Oscar race is all over - except for counting the votes and announcing the winner on Sunday night.

Voting for the most famous awards in the movie world ended Tuesday, with the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences saying it will reject any ballots that did not reach it by 5 pm. Teams of accountants will tally the results, but only two officials at accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers will know the names that go into the hallowed white envelopes.

Slumdog Millionaire, the rags-to-riches film about the life of a Mumbai pauper, is regarded as a strong favourite to dominate the Oscars, even though The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has the most Oscar nominations with 13.

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Rourke: Dogs saved my life

Los Angeles (dpa) - Comeback actor Mickey Rourke did his Oscar chances no harm Tuesday when he credited his pack of cute dogs with saving his life.

"I sort of self-destructed, and everything came out about 14 years ago or so. ... The wife had left, the career was over, the money was not an ounce," Rourke, 56, told US interviewer Barbara Walters ahead of Sunday night's Oscars. "The dogs were there when no one else was there."

Rourke is nominated for best actor for his role as a washed-up fighter in the movie The Wrestler, and excerpts from the interview, in which Rourke describes suicidal thoughts when he was down and out as an actor, were released by People magazine.

"I think I hadn't left the house for four or five months, and I was sitting in the closet, sleeping in the closet for some reason, and I was in a bad place, and I just remember I was thinking, 'Oh, man, if I do this,'" he tells Walters.

"And then I looked at my dog, Lowjack, and he made a sound, like a little almost human sound. I don't have kids. The dogs became everything to me. The dog was looking at me going, 'Who's going to take care of me?'"

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Judge dismisses Polanski's sex case appeal

Los Angeles (dpa) - A Los Angeles judge on Tuesday dismissed a bid by Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski to overturn his conviction 30 years ago on charges of having an unlawful sex with a minor.

But Judge Peter Espinoza backed Polanski's claim that there had been substantial misconduct by prosecutors and the judge in the original case, and that Polanski was free to appeal if he returned to the US.

Polanski fled the country to France prior to his 1978 conviction and based his appeal on a documentary film that found that there had been inappropriate contact between the prosecution and the original judge in the case.

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Timberlake named most stylish US man

Los Angeles (dpa) - Justin Timberlake was named Tuesday as the most stylish man in America by men's fashion and lifestyle magazine GQ.

Other famous names on the list of top 10 dandies included singer and producer Mark Ronson and rappers TI and Kanye West.

Timberlake was praised by GQ for his ability to target trends such as hats, three-piece suits, skinny ties and beards.

He credited his banker stepfather with developing his style sense.

"When he worked at the bank, he looked like Richard Gere in '(American) Gigolo,'" Timberlake said. "And he would do it all the night before, laying out the suit he'd wear the next day. Even on weekends, if he had to go into the office, he'd wear a trouser pant with a V-neck sweater and tie. And I was like, 'I want to dress like that!' He was just so cool."

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Don Johnson sues for Nash Bridges cash

Los Angeles (dpa) - Actor Don Johnson sued a production company for a share of the profits earned by his hit detective series Nash Bridges.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleged that the 1990s series had made 150 million dollars from television reruns, to which Johnson was entitled to 50 per cent of the profits.

The former Miami Vice actor starred in the series as a San Francisco detective. It originally screened on US network CBS from
1996-2001. The suit claims the programme made more than 300 million dollars in revenue, half of which came from sales of reruns to US cable channels and international syndication. (dpa)