'Simpsons Movie' unites show's past, present

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- For a cartoon comedy dependent on how much ruination one homely yellow family can cause, there's an awful lot of drama behind "The Simpsons."

Fans gripe that the animated show is nowhere near as funny as it was in the early glory years of the 1990s. Some predict the big-screen "The Simpsons Movie," opening Friday, will be similarly disappointing. Others wonder why it took so long for the show to make the leap to theaters.
And distributor 20th Century Fox has stoked speculation about the quality of "The Simpsons Movie" by keeping it under tight wraps, declining to show it to critics until a few days before its release.
That's generally taken as a sign that the movie is a stinker, though not always.
In June, Fox withheld critic screenings for "Live Free or Die Hard" until the weekend before its Wednesday opening, leaving reviewers expecting to hate it. Then the movie turned out to be a pleasant throwback to muscular old action flicks, earning solid reviews and becoming a $100 million hit.
Might the same hold true for the first cinematic adventure of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson?
Fox screened the movie over the weekend for a small group of entertainment reporters. The film delivered some laughs, but it certainly did not bring the house down.
The lure of seeing even just a passably funny Simpsons tale on the big-screen might be enough to draw fans who have tuned in over the show's nearly 20-year run, though.
Without giving away details, here's the basic story: Homer dumps waste from his new pet pig into an already polluted lake, causing an environmental crisis that prompts President Schwarzenegger and his evil aide (Albert Brooks) to seal off the town.
Escaping enraged neighbors, the Simpsons begin a new life in Alaska, but they eventually realize they must stand by their hometown of Springfield, which faces an even greater threat.
Along with creator Matt Groening, producers James L. Brooks and Al Jean and director David Silverman, the movie reunited key creative talent from throughout the tenure of "The Simpsons," which is entering its 19th season. Among the writers were such series veterans as Mike Scully, John Swartzwelder, David Mirkin and Jon Vitti. Watch Groening talk about the fun of cartoon violence »
"We wanted to give it an old-school buzz. Everybody or almost everybody who ran the show or was there at the beginning took part in the first meeting for the movie," Brooks said.
The main voice cast -- Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer -- is joined by other series regulars, one superstar celebrity and a major musical guest band.
Thoughts of a feature film go back as far as 1992, when "The Simpsons" overseers considered expanding an episode about Krusty the Klown's summer camp into a movie.
Groening and colleagues say they were always too busy with the show to develop a film version, but once the cast signed a contract extension in 2001, the pieces began falling into place, with work starting in earnest by late 2003.
After beginning as a series of short animated segments on "The Tracey Ullman Show," "The Simpsons" debuted as a half-hour sitcom during the 1989-90 season on the struggling new Fox network.
Groening came up with the idea for his dysfunctional family as he was about to meet with Fox executives to discuss a cartoon idea. He had been thinking about pitching an animated version of his "Life In Hell" comics that featured a dark, twisted world of bunnies.
"Then I thought to myself, this Fox network might not work out, and I'm going to be left at the end of the season with a failed piece of animation and may wreck my nice, little, tidy weekly comic strip," Groening said. "So I created new characters on the spot."
Borrowing the names of his parents and sisters, Groening created the boorish, buffoonish but ever-lovable family that would become the Simpsons.
The show quickly became a cultural sensation, with omnipresent merchandising, voices by Hollywood A-list guest stars and critics that included President George H.W. Bush, who complained that America needed to be more like "The Waltons" and less like "The Simpsons."
That prompted an on-air reply by the show's creators, with Bart asserting his family was like "The Waltons," both clans praying for an end to the Depression.
What made "The Simpsons" so compelling?
"It's a very relatable show. Everyone in my view comes from a family like the Simpsons. No matter who you are, there's somebody where you go, 'That's me,"' producer Jean said. "I used to identify with Lisa. Now I identify with Homer, and Grandpa's coming up fast."
Then there was the idea of a cartoon show with all the goofiness kids like laced with snappy, sophisticated, risque dialogue and gags for older crowds. The show was satiric and madcap, with characters unlike anything that came before on an animated series.
"They were offbeat looking, and the offbeat sensibilities of Matt Groening can't be emphasized enough," said director Silverman. "It has a sort of blank acceptance of all the stupidities of life. ...
"You had a veteran like James Brooks who came from writing smart sitcoms (such as 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' and 'Taxi') and brought that same sensibility now to writing for a cartoon show. That had never been done. I remember reading the first script thinking, this is amazing, I've never seen a script like this for a half-hour animated piece, ever," Silverman said.
In a way, "The Simpsons Movie" allowed its creators to go back to the show's bawdier roots, when they could get away with more ribald humor. Partly because of the uproar over Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, TV censors have been more prudish in recent years, Brooks said.
"When it comes to doing the show, there are things we were able to do with Bart five years ago that we're no longer able to do anymore," Brooks said. "There might be some brash joke that was suddenly outlawed, but that doesn't apply to our movie."

'Wizards Gone Wild' not in 'Potter' star's plans

NEW YORK (AP) -- Don't get your hopes up, gossip hounds. Daniel Radcliffe, who turns 18 later this month, isn't planning any trips to rehab or jail.

"What everybody would love to see is me having ditched school and then just going wild," says Radcliffe, star of the "Harry Potter" movies, in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine, on newsstands Friday. "That's what I'm determined not to give them."
Radcliffe was 11 when he was first cast as the bespectacled schoolboy wizard.
Warner Bros.' "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the fifth movie in the series based on J.K. Rowling's novels, opened Wednesday. Warner Brothers is owned by Time Warner, CNN's parent company. Watch muggle mom's review of the movie »
"I actually don't mind watching myself, for sort of the first time in five films," Radcliffe says. "I have got better. Thank God! I still see a lot of room for improvement, obviously. But I've started to see Harry rather than myself."
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Review: 'Sicko' a tonic, even with flaws

(CNN) -- America's most inspired polemicist -- and most polarizing filmmaker -- Michael Moore returns to the fray with his first movie since "Fahrenheit 9/11" broke box-office records and challenged George W. Bush's White House.
With "Sicko," this time Moore has set his sights on a more amorphous, and possibly an even more powerful target: HMOs and the American health care industry.
A little over a year ago, Moore invited citizens to send in their health-care horror stories. Within the week his Web site was inundated with 25,000 emails. If this is anecdotal evidence, it's on a scale worth talking about.
"Sicko" begins with three cases illustrating the plight of the 46 million Americans without health insurance, but quickly moves on to address wider concerns about the kind of care reserved for the lucky 250 million who do have coverage. (Analysis: Does Moore get his facts straight?)
In a nutshell, Moore's argument comes down to this: the insurance companies are making a killing at their customers' expense. And in this industry, that term is all too literal.
Moore adopts a low profile in the film's relatively somber first half, softening his familiar snarky stridency for a hushed sincerity more appropriate to the hospital waiting room. Many of the people here are in desperately dire straits: sick, bereaved, or just plain broke. Other interviewees are whistle-blowers, guilty and angry about their roles in the Machine.
As well they might be. As countless stories have documented, Americans face countless problems with their health care. They may be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions -- or retrospectively denied coverage for pre-existing conditions they never knew about.
HMOs employ teams of investigators to disallow claimants on technical grounds and some offer medical directors financial incentives to deny drugs and treatments that -- by definition -- cut into corporate profits. (This style is a legacy of the Nixon administration, according to a striking scene from "Sicko" that plays a snippet from the White House tapes.)
When Moore does eventually slouch on screen, it's to play the innocent abroad, a wide-eyed chump bowled over by the wonders of socialized medicine as it's practiced in Canada, the UK and France. This will be an eye-opener for many -- including the Canadians, the Brits and the French, probably.
Having "enjoyed" first-hand experience of two of these three health systems -- the British and the Canadian -- I can attest that they're not quite as idyllic as Mr. Moore paints them. Except in comparison with the U.S. system, of course, and that's the point. Moore is a master of overstatement, but his comic shtick hits the target more often than not. It only hurts when we laugh.
If Moore missteps, it's in the one sequence he and the Weinstein Company have made sure everyone has already heard about (with a little help from the U.S. government): the boat lift to Cuba for three ailing 9/11 heroes. It's Stunt Man Mike at his crudest, and not as effective as he intended.
To be sure, it's bitterly ironic that Guantanamo detainees have access to better medical care than the soldiers who guard them, but Moore is easily diverted into a silly commercial for Cuban socialist medicine that plays exactly like the kind of Soviet propaganda films he sends up earlier in the movie.
It's tough to see firefighters who have been let down by their own country receiving proper care in Havana, but what makes it harder is the suspicion that Michael Moore is treating them like hostages in his own propaganda war. You have to wonder how this squares with the results of the World Health Organization report cited in "Sicko," which placed the U.S. at No. 37, one spot above Slovenia -- and, if you look fast enough, two places above Cuba.
But all is fair in love and Moore, and the system is sick, no question. With four times as many health lobbyists as there are congressmen, and with multimillion-dollar campaign donations at stake, the prospect of universal care seems a distant hope. (In that regard, the brief sequence implying that Hilary Clinton has been bought off may be the most significant.)
It's not impossible that this bitterly funny, bitterly sad call to alms could move reform back up the political agenda. For that reason alone, you owe it to yourself to see this movie.

Review: 'A Mighty Heart' showcases an understated Jolie

(CNN) -- Daniel Pearl flew in to Islamabad, Pakistan, on September 12, 2001. As the South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, he would spend the next four months reporting on Afghanistan and Operation Enduring Freedom.
He and his pregnant wife, Mariane, a reporter for French public radio, celebrated the New Year in the sprawling city of Karachi, Pakistan, a nexus for gunrunners and drug-smugglers; dirt poor and decidedly dangerous.
The evening of January 23, the last day of his assignment, Danny Pearl went to interview Sheik Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani. He never returned.
Produced by Brad Pitt and starring Angelina Jolie, "A Mighty Heart" is based on Mariane Pearl's memoir of the same name. It's a breathless account of the events of that January day and the nightmarish five weeks that followed, as U.S. intelligence and Pakistan's counterterrorist agency hunted the kidnappers.
Give the tabloids' favorite celebrity couple some credit: This is hardly a conventional star vehicle. Several months pregnant and essentially a passive figure in the drama, Mariane scarcely leaves her friend Asra's house, save for an infuriatingly unproductive meeting with a local government minister and an interview with CNN.
The large, gated home becomes the unofficial command center for the search and rescue operation, manned by Asra (Archie Panjabi); the Journal's foreign editor, John Bussey (Denis O'Hare); Randall Bennett (Will Patton) from the U.S. consulate; and Pakistan CID's "Captain" (Irfan Khan -- the Bollywood star from "The Namesake").
Set in the very eye of the War on Terror, this is necessarily a grim and painful movie, but the tense, raw alliance of reporters and public officials from three continents has us hoping against hope for a breakthrough. We might discern one too, in their shared concern for Mariane and her baby.
Famously prolific and congenitally unsentimental, British director Michael Winterbottom is at his weakest supplying rote flashbacks to the Pearls' loving marriage. The movie is much more convincing when it sticks with place and process and lets the emotions take care of themselves.
This is the third nonfiction drama Winterbottom has made in Pakistan since September 11, but it's the first that feels like the work of an outsider. (The others were "In This World" and "The Road to Guantanamo".)
It's an authentically jumbled snapshot of the impenetrable, overwhelming poverty of a Third World slum city (exteriors were shot in Karachi, the house scenes in India). Few shots last more than a couple of seconds, and most are punctuated with the clamor of horns and brakes. As dusk falls, it really does feel like we're encroaching on some dark heart.
The movie's clipped procedural mode hots up as the authorities begin to connect the dots -- or rather the cell numbers and Internet service providers. In the most troubling sequence, with time running out, Captain tortures a suspect. The information he extracts is valuable but the effort is ultimately futile. Were his actions justified? Winterbottom doesn't exactly suppress the question, but he doesn't let it detain him either. That's the privilege but also the handicap of such a committed neutral observer.
Jolie has attracted some negative comment for playing the dark-skinned French (Dutch-Afro-Cuban-Chinese) journalist, but whatever you think of the casting, her restrained, unshowy performance and soft, subtle accent hit the right notes: Mariane, a practicing Buddhist, is smart and articulate, resolute in her convictions even as she is pushed to her very limits.
Her grief erupts in one heart-rending sequence, but it's her dignity and empathy that stay with you -- the adamant refusal to surrender her compassion. This kind of heroism is worth celebrating.

Bob Barker wins 19th trophy at Daytime Emmys

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- After 35 years of giving away prizes, newly retired Bob Barker picked up one of his own at the Daytime Emmy Awards on Friday night.
The 83-year-old former emcee of "The Price Is Right" won his 19th trophy as game-show host, beating a field that included last year's winner, Alex Trebek of "Jeopardy!"
"Come on down!" presenter Ellen DeGeneres shouted.
Barker received his second of three standing ovations of the night, having gotten his first when he introduced the evening's first presenters while on the arms of "Barker's Beauties," models from his show.
"This proves that the judges had sympathy for an old man who doesn't have a job," quipped Barker, who retired last week after 35 years on "The Price Is Right" and 50 years in television.
"I want to thank the television viewers across the country for inviting me into their homes for 50 years," he said, before concluding with his signature signoff. "And remember, help control the pet population. Have your pet spayed or neutered."
Barker came into the show already a winner. He earned his 18th trophy at Thursday night's ceremony for craft categories as executive producer of "The Price Is Right."
Barker's career was honored during the ceremony, which aired live on CBS from the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles following the network's prime-time rebroadcast of Barker's last "Price" show.
His early victory keyed a big night for CBS, which won nine trophies to go with its seven creative arts awards Thursday, giving the network a leading 16 wins.
"Guiding Light," which came in with a leading 17 nominations, tied another CBS soap opera, "The Young and the Restless," for drama series honors.
PBS was second with 15 awards, including 13 creative arts trophies. Syndicated shows earned 11 trophies, including six by DeGeneres and "The Ellen DeGeneres Show." ABC was fourth with nine wins, while NBC earned five.
DeGeneres scored her fourth consecutive victory for talk show and third win in a row for talk show host, keeping "The View" co-hosts Barbara Walters, Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and the recently departed Rosie O'Donnell winless.
"I really am shocked," DeGeneres said before acknowledging "The View" ladies and O'Donnell's controversial yearlong stint. "I thought Rosie brought a lot of new viewers to daytime television and it was interesting."
DeGeneres joked that she planned to take a page from "The View" on her show.
"And I want to just start with something controversial right now to kick it off and I know this might not be popular and I don't care because that's what I'm doing," she said. "I just want to say it -- I think Bob Barker is a quitter."
Barker laughed along with the rest of the audience.
CBS also swept the lead acting categories, with victories for Maura West of "As the World Turns" and Christian LeBlanc of "The Young and the Restless," daytime's No. 1 rated show.
West picked up her first Daytime Emmy for playing Carly, whose emotional breakup with husband Jack was a major storyline. She defeated four-time winner Kim Zimmer of "Guiding Light" in a category where all five nominees star on CBS soaps.
"It's so much heavier than I thought," said West, who began watching the soap opera in high school and met her real-life husband on the show. "I feel like I'm going to throw up. I'm just thrilled to bits and pieces."
LeBlanc won his first trophy in 2005. This time, he upset a field that included co-star Peter Bergman, last year's winner Anthony Geary of "General Hospital," Michael Park of "As the World Turns," and Ricky Paull Goldin of "Guiding Light."
Genie Francis of "General Hospital" claimed her first Daytime Emmy for supporting actress in a drama series. Francis returned to the soap opera last year as Laura Spencer, a role she began playing at age 14.
"Oh my goodness!" she said. "Thank you so much. I am overwhelmed. I've waited 31 years for this moment."
Francis and co-star Geary, who plays Luke Spencer, were part of the most watched event in daytime television history when their characters married 26 years ago.
Francis' "General Hospital" co-star, Rick Hearst, won supporting actor honors.
Jennifer Landon of "As the World Turns" won her second consecutive award for younger actress in a drama series. She thanked her late father, actor Michael Landon.
Bryton McClure of "The Young and the Restless" won his first Daytime Emmy as younger actor in a drama series.
There was a tie for performer in a children's series between "Sesame Street's" Kevin Clash, who plays Elmo, and Caroll Spinney, who plays Oscar the Grouch.
"I started watching this show when I was 10 years old," said Clash, who also won last year and had a tuxedoed Elmo on his arm. "My mom thought I would go blind watching it trying to figure out how to build these things. I just love living on the street of 'Sesame Street."'
A Lifetime Achievement Award went to Lee Phillip Bell, who co-created "The Young and the Restless" and "The Bold and the Beautiful" with late husband William J. Bell.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Paris Hilton may return to jail; hearing Friday

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Paris Hilton will have to appear in court after all.
The judge in her court hearing has ordered the L.A. Sheriff's Department to pick her up and bring her to the L.A. Superior Court this morning, CNN has learned.
Hilton, who is serving her jail sentence from her Hollywood Hills home, was headed for a courtroom showdown that could put her back behind bars, as prosecutors sought to hold sheriff's officials in contempt for releasing her early from jail.
Hilton was ordered to report to court at 9 a.m. The judge signed an order for deputies to bring her in a sheriff's vehicle from her Hollywood Hills home, said Superior Court spokesman Allan Parachini.
Friday morning, Parachini said Hilton would be allowed to take part in the hearing by telephone, but Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer stuck to his original order.
The frenzy over Hilton's jail status began early Thursday when sheriff's officials released Hilton because of an undisclosed medical condition and sent her home under house arrest. She had been in jail since late Sunday. (Watch the details of Hilton's release )
Hilton was fitted with an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet and was expected to finish her 45-day sentence for a reckless driving probation violation at her four-bedroom, three-bath home.
The decision by Sheriff Lee Baca to move Hilton chafed prosecutors and Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer, who spelled out during sentencing that Hilton was not allowed to serve house detention.
Late Thursday, Sauer issued the order for Hilton to return to court after the city attorney filed a petition demanding that Hilton be returned to jail and to show cause why Baca shouldn't be held in contempt of court.
Baca does not have to be in court, and it was unclear who would represent the Sheriff's Department.
The move also was met with outrage from the sheriff's deputies union, members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, civil rights leaders, defense attorneys and others.
"What transpired here is outrageous," county Supervisor Don Knabe told The Associated Press, adding he received more than 400 angry e-mails and hundreds more phone calls from around the country.
Hilton's return home "gives the impression of ... celebrity justice being handed out," he said. (Watch Hilton enter jail )
Baca dismissed the criticism, saying the decision was made based on medical advice.
"It isn't wise to keep a person in jail with her problem over an extended period of time and let the problem get worse," Baca told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday.
"My message to those who don't like celebrities is that punishing celebrities more than the average American is not justice," Baca said.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown criticized the Sheriff's Department for letting Hilton out of jail, saying he believed she should serve out her sentence.
"It does hold up the system to ridicule when the powerful and the famous get special treatment," Brown told The Associated Press in an interview before testifying at a congressional hearing in Washington.
"I'm sure there's a lot of people who've seen their family members go to jail and have various ailments, physical and psychological, that didn't get them released," he said. "I'd say it's time for a course correction."
The Los Angeles County jail system is so overcrowded that attorneys and jail officials have said it is not unusual for nonviolent offenders like Hilton to be released after serving as little as 10 percent of their sentences.
In the hours after Hilton's release, it was a madcap scene outside her house in the hills above the Sunset Strip. As word spread that Hilton was back home, radio helicopter pilots who normally report on traffic conditions were dispatched to hover over her house and describe it to morning commuters. Paparazzi photographers on the ground quickly assembled outside its gates.
Shortly before noon, Hilton issued a statement through her attorney.
"I want to thank the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and staff of the Century Regional Detention Center for treating me fairly and professionally," she said. "I am going to serve the remaining 40 days of my sentence. I have learned a great deal from this ordeal and hope that others have learned from my mistakes."
Hilton's path to jail began September 7, when she failed a sobriety test after police saw her weaving down a street in her Mercedes-Benz on what she said was a late-night run to a hamburger stand.
She pleaded no contest to reckless driving and was sentenced to 36 months' probation, alcohol education and $1,500 in fines.
In the months that followed she was stopped twice by officers who discovered her driving on a suspended license. The second stop landed her in Sauer's courtroom, where he sentenced her to jail.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Paris Hilton checks into Los Angeles County jail

LYNWOOD, California (AP) -- Hours after strolling the red carpet in a strapless black dress, Paris Hilton traded her designer duds for a jail-issued jumpsuit.
The 26-year-old heiress checked into the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood just after 11:30 p.m. Sunday. She's expected to serve three weeks for violating her probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case.
Hilton surrendered to sheriff's deputies after making a surprise visit to the MTV Movie Awards in the afternoon.
"I am trying to be strong right now," she told reporters on the red carpet. "I'm ready to face my sentence. Even though this is a really hard time, I have my family, my friends and my fans to support me, and that's really helpful." (Watch Hilton make her comments )
Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said Hilton was easy to work with.
"Her demeanor was helpful. She was focused, she was cooperative," he said. (Watch how playtime for Paris is over )
Hilton turned herself in at the Men's Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles just after 10:30 p.m., then was escorted to the all women's facility in Lynwood, where she was booked, fingerprinted and issued a jail uniform, Whitmore said.
She also was given her first meal: cereal, bread and juice.
So far, Hilton does not have a cellmate, Whitmore said.
The "Simple Life" star will be housed in the "special needs" unit of the 13-year-old jail, separate from most of its 2,200 inmates. The unit contains 12 two-person cells reserved for police officers, public officials, celebrities and other high-profile inmates.
Like other inmates in that unit, Hilton will take her meals in her cell and will be allowed outside the 12-foot-by-8-foot space for at least an hour each day to shower, watch TV in the day room, participate in outdoor recreation or talk on the telephone. No cell phones or BlackBerrys are permitted in the facility, even for visitors.
The jail, a two-story concrete building next to train tracks and beneath a bustling freeway, has been an all-female facility since March 2006. It's located in an industrial area about five miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.
"I did have a choice to go to a pay jail," Hilton said Sunday, without giving details. "But I declined because I feel like the media portrays me in a way that I'm not and that's why I wanted to go to county, to show that I can do it and I'm going to be treated like everyone else. I'm going to do the time, I'm going to do it the right way."
When she was sentenced May 4, Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer ruled that she would not be allowed any work release, furloughs or use of an alternative jail or electronic monitoring in lieu of jail.
Sometimes stars are allowed to do their time in a jail of their choosing. In such cases they pay a daily room-and-board fee to the smaller jails, which afford them more privacy and comfort.
Cop-slapping actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, for example, served three days behind bars in 1990 at the El Segundo jail near the Los Angeles International Airport. She paid $85 a day.
On Saturday, about 15 photographers, reporters and television crews staked out the entrances to the jail waiting for the celebutante's arrival. Authorities had also cordoned off a grassy area outside the facility for the media. She had until Tuesday to report.
On Sunday, about a dozen photographers and television crews were at the Lynwood facility when she arrived in an unmarked SUV. Video captured by celebrity news site TMZ.com showed Hilton inside the vehicle with her mother, Kathy.
Hilton's publicist, Elliot Mintz, said he spoke with Kathy Hilton after she returned from the jail.
"She told me it was very emotional," Mintz said. "She also said that she feels this will be a time when Paris will be able to think and reflect and to spend time alone to learn from the experience because in Paris' life she's never alone -- there's always a constant chatter around her."
Officers arrested Hilton in Hollywood on September 7. In January, she pleaded no contest to the reckless-driving charge and was sentenced to 36 months' probation, alcohol education and $1,500 in fines.
She was pulled over by California Highway Patrol on January 15. Officers informed Hilton she was driving on a suspended license and she signed a document acknowledging she was not to drive. She then was pulled over by sheriff's deputies on February 27, at which time she was charged with violating her probation.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Review: 'Knocked Up' a top-rank comedy

(CNN) -- In a summer set for domination by inflated franchise movies in exhausting (and often exhausted) mega-mode, "Knocked Up" is a designated sleeper, the little movie that could -- and should -- clean up.
For once, critics and moviegoers are likely to be on the same page. Who isn't ready for a refreshingly frank, funny odd-couple comedy with engaging leads and too many belly laughs to count? (Lemme guess: I had you at "refreshingly.") Indeed, who isn't up for a movie that doesn't come encumbered with so much as a digit in the title, or even a colon?
OK, so "Knocked Up" sits comfortably on the same well-worn couch as "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," the previous hit from writer-director-producer Judd Apatow. Several of the same actors crop up, many of them veterans from Apatow's short-lived but fondly remembered small-screen gems, "Freaks and Geeks" and "Undeclared." But in this case, those are signs of high quality.
First and foremost there's Seth Rogen, an amiable, beer-bellied slob with a tight mop of curly hair, permanent five o'clock shadow and a voice like Baloo the bear, who seemed likely to play sidekicks for the foreseeable future.
Rogen's obvious limitations in the romantic leading man department aren't just the butt of the humor here, they're also the plot. It's "Beauty and the Beast," and he's the beast: his character, Ben Stone, is a twentysomething non-achiever living with four likeminded slackers. Their only employment is idle research into movie-star nudity for a proposed Internet start-up.
Beauty comes in the form of Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl from "Grey's Anatomy"), a perky blonde E! Entertainment presenter. Attractive and goal-oriented, she's on the fast track to success -- that is, until she has the misfortune to cross paths with Ben. Letting her hair down to celebrate a promotion, Alison is charmed by his gallantry at the bar, and then tipsy enough to take him to bed.
"You're prettier than I am," he acknowledges in a fleeting moment of bemused revelation as their clothes come off. But it's not until the morning after that she appreciates how far she's strayed from type, and another couple months before the consequences of this otherwise forgettable one-night stand come home to roost.
She's adamant about having the baby, and he wants to do the right thing. First, though, the parents will have to get to know each other and find out if they can fall in like.
None of this is exactly unexpected, and as the movie gestates the pregnancy's ballooning crises feel rather familiar, from finding the right obstetrician to the inevitable push-comes-to-shove about-face on an epidural.
But if this material has been thoroughly homogenized by decades of situation comedy, it's a tribute to Apatow that even the most hackneyed scenes get a new lease on life from his ruder instincts, steeped as they are in the vulgar, anarchic energies of adolescent angst.
In this movie -- as in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" -- we can sense the "American Pie" generation growing up and settling down, but only with the very greatest reluctance. Ben and his buddies' slacker lifestyle isn't what you would call hygienic, but Apatow pictures it with a fond indulgence -- a note less evident in the barbed E! scenes featuring allegedly adult careerists.
Amid the candid jokes about pregnant sex, the earthy language and promiscuous drug use, "Knocked Up" is also surprisingly grown-up, a fundamentally honest, family-affirming picture in which even Alison's sister's severely strained marriage proves eminently salvageable. Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd contribute some of the movie's sharpest, funniest asides as the unhappy couple -- though in truth, the entire extended cast delivers the goods right down the line.
Even if, like most pregnancies, it goes on too long, "Knocked Up's" winning combination of benevolence and belly laughs will leave audiences smiling. In a nice touch, the end credits are illustrated with the cast and crew's baby pictures. And in Seth Rogen, for sure, a new star is born.

Rush back to save old enemy in 'Pirates'

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Geoffrey Rush lives the actor's life much the way his buccaneer character Barbossa lives the pirate's life.
Both Rush and Barbossa, who's back on board for "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," strike a balance in their jobs between gravitas and goofiness, menace and madness, versatility and buffoonery.
Rush, 55, who won the best-actor Academy Award for his breakout role as dysfunctional piano master David Helfgott in 1996's "Shine," was seemingly out of the picture after Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow killed him at the end of the first flick, "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl." (Watch the pirates of "Pirates" discuss the film )
Yet Barbossa, Jack's mutinous first mate, popped up at the end of last summer's "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," brought back from the dead to join a mission to rescue his old nemesis from Davy Jones' locker.
In "At World's End," Barbossa becomes an uneasy ally to Jack, a juicy role that allows Rush to strut the decks with a blend of the comic abandon the actor honed in his early stage career in Australia and the weightiness he has shown in such films as "Elizabeth," "Les Miserables" and "Lantana." (Read the review)
Rush sat down with The Associated Press to discuss his late-blooming cinema career, the lure of the high seas in the "Pirates" movies and his thoughts on whether the Black Pearl might sail again in future films.
Q: What did you think when you heard Disney was making a movie based on its "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride?
RUSH: On the first film, there was always lots of talk from the more cynical corners of the press. "Oh, we've reached that point of moviemaking where Hollywood is now basing movies on theme-park rides." And I would always go, the pirates of the Caribbean is a very specific point in colonial history that maybe lasted from the mid-1600s to the early 1700s. Two generations. This is when all the powers of Europe were starting to ransack the New World and colonize it. Piracy kind of emerged around that, because there were so many bountiful ships at sea. ...
When I looked at the creative team and I thought of the scale, that this film was going to require all the skills of (producer) Jerry Bruckheimer, with his track record, and the fact that he was throwing in Johnny Depp, the actor's actor, pretty much in his first full-blown, commercially driven role, I found that very exciting. It wasn't rounding up the usual A-list box-office stars. Jerry wanted fresh, he wanted new, he didn't want predictable. (Watch the stars arrive for the "Pirates" premiere )
Q: At what point did you suspect there would be "Pirates" sequels?
RUSH: We got an inkling of it as we were completing the last two weeks of shooting on the first one. The call sheets would start not just having "Pirates of the Caribbean," but "Pirates of the Caribbean" -- colon -- "The Curse of the Black Pearl." Once we saw that colon, we started smelling sequel.
Q: How surprising was it that you were brought back, given that Barbossa dies in the first movie?
RUSH: I more or less said to them, "Well, that's good, I hope you guys have a great time." They said, "No, no, we are going to create a new villain. We're going to move the story at one point to Asia. We're going to involve sea monsters and all that, but Barbossa is going to return."
They were saying, "Keep this under your hat, but Jack Sparrow's going to die in the second movie." I went, "You're kidding me. The fans are going to go berserk."
They said, "Yeah, but there's this great teaser moment at the end, just when the film reaches a kind of melancholy wake, suddenly Barbossa emerges, and he's the guy that's got the goods and the map to go to the other side to bring Jack back." My mind was boggling with the potential of that, the story lines that could come out of that.
Q: The third movie seems to set up a potential new rivalry between Jack and Barbossa. What are the chances for more films?
RUSH: The writers always wanted to have this huge, rolling conflict between Jack and Barbossa. Even in the pre-story of the first film, where we heard a lot about how Barbossa was Jack's first mate, then he mutinied and took over. There's never going to be a resolution to that conflict.
So, sure, there are potential story lines, not uninteresting ones. I joked and said, "Why don't we do a prequel? If they find the fountain of youth, wouldn't that be fantastic?" They could CGI us up, so I could be 25 and Jack could be 10. There's a lot of fun in it.
Q: More sequels make good business sense, but what would it take to get you and the other creative people back on board?
RUSH: I think the same rules would apply. No one would want to do more of the same. I'm sure the studio heads would go, "Come on, we could bang one more out." But I just know that's not how Jerry would think, and Johnny. There'd be creative input. People would say, "Wow, you come up with a good script and a good set of conflicts and swerve it in a new direction, then it would be legitimate." But Disney's not going to say, "That was aesthetically pleasing. Let's put it to bed now." I can't see that sentence coming out in the board room.
Q: Your early career was mostly stage work, but in the last decade, you've played Peter Sellers, Trotsky, the Marquis de Sade, a couple of great Elizabethan characters, a larger-than-life pirate on film. If someone told you pre-"Shine" that you would have all those film roles, would you have believed them?
RUSH: Not at all. I think it has reflected very pleasurably the sort of diversity, the kinds of roles I used to play in the theater. I've managed to find some kind of cinematic equivalent to that. I was never a leading man. I've always been in the outer concentric circles in the company, being a character actor, which is a good place to be. It gives you that diversity.
Q: What do you think about the pirate iconography that's become so omnipresent largely because of the movie franchise?
RUSH: [When] I was staying at the Chateau, West Hollywood was rancid with pirates last Halloween. I was very tempted, if it didn't involve a 2 1/2-hour makeup job, I was so tempted to go out and just walk down Sunset Boulevard and knock everyone in a bandanna with a sword in their belt out of the water by parading along as Barbossa. It would be kind of fun.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Celebrating an 'indestructible' American legend

NEW YORK (AP) -- On the 100th anniversary of John Wayne's birth, the Duke still swaggers through the American psyche as not just an actor, but a patriot -- his centennial spawning fond remembrance, and perhaps a few small protests on the side.
Wayne's legacy is unique because of the dual perspectives that pervade his memory. Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Garry Wills, who wrote "John Wayne's America" in 1997, described Wayne as "the most popular movie star ever, but also the most polarizing."
It could be argued that no other film actor has ever come to symbolize so many things: rugged masculinity, the frontier, even America itself. The Duke has remained, in the truest sense, an icon.
For many, an entire way of life is epitomized in the tired, unblinking eyes that peered knowingly from his cocksure pose ("walks around like a big cat," said Howard Hawks). His voice, too, seems etched in the collective memory: With a simple "pilgrim," a whole lost world is summoned.
Wayne, born Marion Robert Morrison, would have turned 100 on Saturday. He died at 72 of stomach cancer in June 1979 after a career that spanned more than 170 films. He didn't win an Academy Award until 1970 for his performance in "True Grit." (He was nominated twice earlier -- for best actor in 1949's "Sands of Iwo Jima" and best picture for 1960's "The Alamo," which he directed and produced.)
To this day, he still ranks atop polls rating the most adored actors; a Harris Poll conducted just this year rated him as the third-most popular movie star behind Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks.
Nostalgia for strong, silent heroes like those Wayne portrayed can regularly be spotted in places like HBO's "The Sopranos." Of course, even Tony Soprano sees a shrink, and Wayne's rugged masculinity is now often viewed as the symbol of bygone era; feelings are now meant to be openly expressed and analyzed. Those who keep their emotions locked up have even been referred to as suffering from the "John Wayne syndrome."
He seldom deviated from heroic roles, often set in the West or on the battlefield. Among his most beloved and acclaimed films are "Stagecoach" (1939), "Sands of Iwo Jima" (1949), "The Searchers" (1956) and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962). His range was limited, but he mined a narrow path of the reluctant but obligated hero -- a consistent approach that furthered his iconic stature.
He knew it, too.
"When I started, I knew I was no actor, and I went to work on this Wayne thing," he once said. "I figured I needed a gimmick, so I dreamed up the drawl, the squint and a way of moving meant to suggest that I wasn't looking for trouble but would just as soon throw a bottle at your head as not. I practiced in front of a mirror."
It's a notably different -- and perhaps dated -- tactic in a profession that values, above all, malleability. If you want to be an actor, study Brando. But if you want to be a movie star, study Wayne.
"He never tricked the audience with the characters he played," says Gretchen Wayne, who heads her late husband Michael Wayne's film company, Batjac Production, which was formed in 1954 by her legendary father-in-law. "His films started in the late '20s, early '30s, so there's three generations of people who have grown up with him."
She will host an evening presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles on Thursday, where a new restoration of "The High and the Mighty" (1954) will be shown. (Wayne was married three times and had seven children.)
Turner Classic Movies (like CNN, a unit of Time Warner) has been paying tribute throughout the week by airing a 35-film festival of his movies. His birthplace, Winterset, Iowa, will hold a groundbreaking ceremony Saturday for a new John Wayne museum. "Hondo" (1953), recently restored in digital 3-D, will screen at the Cannes Film Festival.
Hollywood studios are also rolling out a small army of DVD releases, including collector's sets from Lionsgate, Universal, Warner Home Video and Paramount.
Representing
This is all evidences an enduring love for Wayne that may surpass even his esteemed contemporaries: Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, whose centennial was earlier this month.
Unlike some of the stars of his day, Wayne never served in World War II, ironic since Gen. Douglas MacArthur said he "represented the American serviceman better than the American serviceman himself." He was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal in 1979 shortly before his death.
Jim Olson, a Sam Houston State University history professor who co-wrote the 1995 biography "John Wayne: American," believes Wayne's guilt over not serving in the war propelled him to compensate by being a fervent anti-communist and symbol of American ideals.
"Wayne was a confused young man," says Olson. "He sort of grew up searching for the meaning of life and I think he found it in the values he ended up portraying on screen. His screen image and his individual persona kind of kept ricocheting off each other over time until the image on screen became his alter ego."
Especially in his later years, Wayne came to symbolize political conservatism and a dedication to country. His stand against communism during the Cold War was so influential that Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin plotted to assassinate him, according to Michael Munn's 2005 biography "John Wayne: The Man Behind the Myth."
Wayne famously said, "I always thought I was a liberal. I came up terribly surprised one time when I found out that I was a right-wing conservative extremist."
He angered more people with his support of the Vietnam War, which he expressed openly in 1968's "The Green Berets," a film he co-directed and starred in.
"Wayne lived in a world of absolutes. He did not like ambiguity," says Olson. "He lived in a world where, in his mind, right was right and wrong was wrong. And evil was real and evil had to be crushed with violence if necessary.
"There's a generation of Americans that kind of grew up with Wayne, matured with Wayne and grew old with Wayne, through all the trials and traumas of modern American history -- and in doing so, found in him a voice they understood."
It's been not only 100 years since his birth, but nearly three decades since his death. Yet Wayne still remains one of the most recognizable faces in the world. He is, as New York Times film critic Vincent Camby once wrote, "marvelously indestructible."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Legendary actress still a special voice

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Julie Andrews has been Hollywood royalty for decades. Lately, she's had the parts to prove it with queenly roles in "The Princess Diaries" and "Shrek" films.
Andrews -- who reprises her voice role in "Shrek the Third" as Queen Lillian, mother-in-law to Mike Myers' ogre and mom to Cameron Diaz's ogre princess -- is a pragmatic monarch.
Since throat surgery ruined the glorious singing voice of the star of "Mary Poppins," "The Sound of Music," "Victor/Victoria" and other films, Andrews finds other ways to express herself, continuing to moonlight as a children's author and director. (Watch the "Shrek" cast members talk about their characters )
Though she managed a subdued little musical number in 2004's "The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement," Andrews said she has not recovered her singing voice in the 10 years since the surgery.
"No, sadly," Andrews said in an interview to promote "Shrek the Third." "I'm not singing. My daughter, the one that I write with, said something so lovely. I was bemoaning the fact that I wasn't singing and how much I missed it. And she said, 'Mom, you've just found a different way of using your voice by writing.' It made me feel so much better. ...
"I do miss singing with an orchestra, the beauty of it all. I miss the music. But at least I am able to still contribute, which is lovely."
Andrews, 71, has referred to her talent as "my freak four-octave voice," which gave her an early start in show business in England. The daughter of music-hall performers, Andrews was singing on stage as a child and was still in her teens when she debuted on Broadway.
She quickly became a Broadway superstar as Eliza Doolittle in "My Fair Lady" and followed that musical as Guinevere in "Camelot," though success in Hollywood initially was elusive.
Andrews was passed over in favor of Audrey Hepburn for the big-screen version of "My Fair Lady." But Walt Disney cast her as the perky, singing nanny in 1964's "Mary Poppins," a screen debut that earned Andrews the best-actress Academy Award. That same year, Hepburn was not even nominated for "My Fair Lady."
A year later, Andrews was nominated for best actress in "The Sound of Music," and she earned a third nomination for 1982's "Victor/Victoria," one of seven films she made with her husband, director Blake Edwards.
Andrews' voice problems developed while she was performing in the Broadway production of "Victor/Victoria" in the mid-1990s. She underwent surgery to remove non-cancerous nodules, but the operation left her without her singing voice.
She sued two doctors and Mount Sinai hospital in New York and settled out of court in 2000, with no terms disclosed.
By then, Andrews had long since established herself as a children's author, a sidelight that became increasingly important with her singing career over. Her books include "Mandy," "Little Bo," "The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles" and her "Dumpy the Dump Truck" tales.
Daughter: 'Write me a story'
Andrews and daughter Emma Walton Hamilton write together and oversee a collection of children's stories under Andrews' name that includes their own works, tales by others and books that had gone out-of-print.
The writing career began about 30 years ago during a simple game with her children "that required the paying of a forfeit," Andrews said. "I was the first to lose, and I said, 'What shall my forfeit be?'
"My eldest daughter said, 'Write me a story,' and I thought, OK, because I used to make up little tales for them. I thought a couple of pages of an Aesop's fable would be fine, but she was my new stepdaughter, and I thought, well, maybe I can really make something of this and give her a gift."
The pages piled up, husband Edwards urged her on, and "when the book was finished, I felt empty and I wanted to do it again," Andrews said. "It's been going on like that since."
After another children's book, William Steig's "Shrek!", became the basis for the 2001 animated hit, Andrews was brought in for 2004's "Shrek 2" as the voice of Lillian, wife of the frog king Harold.
"We were thinking, OK, we need a queen who has really got it together but has got to have a sense of humor because of the world she lives in," said "Shrek the Third" producer Aron Warner. "Her husband's a frog, her daughter's an ogre. So we had to have someone we knew could laugh but could also carry that sort of regalness.
"Julie's an icon and a dream to work with. We were just talking about how sometimes during her recording sessions, we would sit there and go, 'That's Julie Andrews.' You need to be paying attention to the lines and not the fact that it's Julie Andrews, and I wasn't listening."
Though her singing career is behind her, Andrews does get to hum a tune in "Shrek the Third." In a dizzy moment for Queen Lillian, she trills through a few bars of "My Favorite Things," one of the songs Andrews belted out in "The Sound of Music."
"It felt like a charmingly wicked thing to do," Andrews said.
Andrews has directed for the stage and hopes to do it again amid her writing and acting work, which she hopes will include future "Shrek" films.
"I'm lucky, because I have this job, and I have my wonderful publishing job. I seem to have spread, which makes me feel great, and I'm getting to the age where I love to think about directing now," Andrews said. "I just love to keep myself active, because I've always been active. So as long as I do something that I love, I'm happy."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

DA: No theft charges for Lindsay Lohan

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Lindsay Lohan won't be charged with theft because prosecutors can't confirm she walked off with someone's clothes.
The district attorney's office declined to file felony grand theft charges on May 9 because of insufficient evidence, spokeswoman Jane Robison said Thursday.
An e-mail to a representative for Lohan seeking comment was not immediately returned.
A woman claimed that Lohan walked away with a shirt and other clothing after visiting her apartment while she was away for a few days.
The rejection notice said a housesitter had invited Lohan over and told authorities that she had given Lohan some clothing.
However, a plaid shirt that Lohan supposedly was wearing didn't match photos of a shirt that the alleged victim said was missing.
"The bottom line is that Lohan can't be shown to have been seen either taking or to have been later in possession of missing items and items she can be shown to have possessed were with (the housesitter's) permission," Deputy District Attorney Greg Somes wrote in the rejection notice.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Review: 'Shrek' continues genial hit-or-miss ways

(CNN) -- The monstrously popular but desperately hit-and-miss "Shrek" series continues on its merry way in its inevitable third installment, even if the ogre himself is in danger of being sidetracked altogether.
Actually, that would probably be just fine with Shrek (voice of Mike Myers), a cantankerous and, by and large, humorless fixture in his own franchise. True to form, he spends most of this movie ducking his responsibilities and yearning for a quiet life back at the swamp with Fiona (Cameron Diaz) at his side.
Fate has other plans: when his ailing father-in-law, the frog king, finally croaks, Sir Shrek is next in line to the throne. That is, unless he can persuade Fiona's callow cousin Artie -- that is, Arthur -- to take the gig instead.
Princess Fiona doesn't get much say in all this, but her revelation that Shrek can expect to hear the pitter-patter of not-so-little feet doesn't improve his mood. A surreal nightmare sequence with Shrek babysitting vomiting infant ogres (ogrets?) is as close as this comedy is prepared to risk upsetting its family demographic.
Which isn't to say that it doesn't meander all over the place.
With seven official screenwriters and several more credited with additional dialogue, story ideas and such (including "Silence of the Lambs" scribe Ted Tally) it is hardly surprising that "Shrek the Third" feels like it's been assembled by committee.
Some promising ideas aren't as developed as they might be. Undeterred by the dismal example of "Happily N'ever After," the villainous Prince Charming enlists the aid of a rogue's gallery including Captain Hook, Rumplestiltskin and the Evil Queen, but it says something that they're all upstaged by a couple of enchanted trees. And there's terrific potential in the magical mix-up that sees those reliable scene-stealers Puss (Antonio Banderas) and Donkey (Eddie Murphy) switch hides, but they don't do much with it.
Other sketches fall flat and are allowed to keep right on plummeting: a frog chorus of Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die" at King Harold's funeral is particularly terrible, though you know someone somewhere obviously loved the idea to death. "Worcestershire," a medieval academy populated with Valley Girls and stoners -- laughing yet? -- is another elongated fizzle that smacks of marketing strategy meetings.
Artie himself (Justin Timberlake) is a bland non-entity in the very worst Disney tradition. And Eric Idle's disenchanted New Age-y Merlin is a mildly amusing comic creation encouraged to overstay his welcome.
But it's not all bad, by any means. You've got to love Donkey's brood of braying dragon babes. There's a delicious moment when Gingerbread Man's life flashes before his eyes and he's so moved he breaks into song.
And a baby shower featuring Fiona, her mom (voiced by Julie Andrews), Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Rapunzel gives birth to a spirited girl-power finale, with Snow White (Amy Poehler) storming the gates. (Heaven knows what Julie Andrews is capable of -- the woman did bare her breasts in "S.O.B.")
On top of it all, the animation is more impressive than ever. Facial expressions render nuances you would be hard-pressed to find from Mike Myers or Cameron Diaz in the flesh. It was a nice idea to stage the climax against a theatrical operetta of Prince Charming's devising, and this splendidly creaky, ear-piercing production is lovingly realized.
Verily, then, it's more of the same shtick, but likely a hit with the fans. "Shrek the Third" is beginning to smell a little ripe, but that's just how we like him.
"Shrek the Third" runs 93 minutes and is rated PG. For Entertainment Weekly's take, click here.

'Simpsons' still rolling in 'd'oh'

LOS ANGELES, California (Hollywood Reporter) -- Matt Groening remembers the moment he realized that "The Simpsons" -- the Fox show he created, executive produces and has nurtured as his favorite child for 18 seasons -- had grown to become a genuine colossus of popular culture.
It was a few years back, and he was stopped and searched while going through security at Los Angeles International Airport. "Suddenly, this kid walks by and shouts, 'Heah! Heah!' just like (schoolyard bully) Nelson Muntz would have," Groening recalls. "It was amazing because I'm pretty sure he didn't know who I was. At least, I like to believe he didn't."
Similar incidents, no doubt, occur all the time -- Homer Simpson's classic "D'oh!" long ago entered the American lexicon of catchphrases -- and it can safely be said that TV series don't come much more iconic than "Simpsons." It's the longest-running comedy, in terms of years, in TV history, reaching its 400th-episode milestone May 20 (the Federal Communications Commission-baiting installment "You Kent Always Say What You Want," which finds newsman Kent Brockman locking horns with Ned Flanders over alleged indecency).
Only one other TV comedy -- "The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet," with 435 episodes -- has produced more segments. Already renewed for Season 19, "Simpsons" will tie all-time series champ "Gunsmoke" if it gets renewed for a 20th, which is thought to be likely but hardly a certainty. Nonetheless, considering that it continues to be broadcast in some 75 countries, in 18 different languages, averaging more than 40 million weekly viewers and a staggering 13 billion annual impressions globally, it's hard to argue against the notion that this is the most successful franchise to hit the small screen.
The series' characters, who first appeared as crudely produced shorts on Fox's "The Tracey Ullman Show," will celebrate their 20th anniversary on television with a feature film this summer, "The Simpsons Movie," which will have a global release July 27.
How has this longevity even happened in a medium known for inspiring fickleness and apathy in audiences? Executive producer James L. Brooks says it's a combination of great raw material and uncommon creative freedom.
"Matt's original creation of the characters was just absolutely inspiration, which really set the stage for everything that's followed," Brooks says. "And Fox has been so good about allowing us to be self-governing, to as much an extent as any show can be. We've really never gotten notes from the network, even if there was a ratings dip along the way. (And) we have benefited from mirroring the personality of our showrunners in not being any one rigorous style. They've varied the comedy in such a way that it's always stayed fresh."
Agrees Groening: "There's never been any one single kind of comedy we've tried to do over and over. We do everything from huge physical gags to cameo appearances by Gore Vidal. And I hear all of the stuff about the quality having slipped, but I think the show has never been smarter or better animated than it has in the last few seasons."
At the core of the never-waning "Simpsons" juggernaut is its collection of characters who, thanks to the cartoon format, neither age nor appreciably change in nature. For better or worse, they are what they were when the series premiered in December 1989 with the Christmas-themed "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire." (Story: "Simpsons" voices say they have great jobs)
"When you're dealing with a live-action comedy, the writers and showrunners are obliged to have the characters learn lessons and grow emotionally," says Dana Walden, president of the show's producer, 20th Century Fox Television. "A lot of times when that happens, the show loses its comedic (point of view). That's one reason 'The Simpsons' has thrived for so long."
Producer 'still excited by every show we do'
Despite some ratings erosion over the course of Season 18, Fox Broadcasting Co. has no plans to drop the show from its schedule in the near future.
"In my world, it's almost unfathomable to have any conversation about the end of this show," says Peter Liguori, Fox's president of entertainment. "When I sit down to talk with Matt and Jim (Brooks), it's about what to do during the next 18 years. It's not a job for these guys -- it's a calling."
Al Jean, the show's longtime executive producer/showrunner -- and a "Simpsons" fixture from the beginning -- lately has been logging double duty on both the show and impending film. Despite an exhausting workload, Jean professes to still being "excited by every show we do. And I still feel like we're as good as ever, no matter what the nostalgia crowd might believe."
What's perhaps most remarkable about the series' franchise is its sheer ubiquity.
According to Fox executives, "Simpsons" shows somewhere in the world every hour of every day. And, of course, its tie-in merchandise remains an evergreen wonder of the retail universe. Elie Dekel, Fox executive vp licensing and merchandising, notes there are 600 "Simpsons" licensees, including a group of Kenyan tribesmen making hand-carved stone sculptures of the characters that are expected to be available later this year.
"We're also contemplating approaching the performers to lend their voices to GPS systems in cars," Dekel says. "We use meticulous care and (creative) integrity in developing products for the brand, and it continues to pay off."
The first nine "Simpsons" seasons have now been released on DVD and combined have sold in excess of 12 million units, making the series' home video sales a cottage industry unto itself. And in a TV landscape where comedy isn't supposed to translate from culture to culture, "Simpsons" has proved a massive exception, maintains Fox International Television president Mark Kaner.
"These story lines and characters are so relatable that they've crossed cultural boundaries," Kaner says. "In my 30 years working in TV, I've never seen a show as bulletproof as this one. Globally, it seems to recruit a new audience of young people every three years. It remains unbelievably popular in Spain, Italy, Germany, Australia and all throughout Latin America, and we see no signs of it slowing down."
On its home turf, too, "Simpsons" remains spectacularly consistent as easily the most popular syndicated comedy of the past quarter-century.
And to think it all started so modestly: as a series of interstitials on a series with perpetually low ratings ("Tracey Ullman"), on a network that had, at the time of its premiere, been around only about a year and was found in the upper reaches of the UHF dial in a number of markets.
Even if the odds were long, "I have to say that from Day 1, I thought we would be a hit if adults gave us a chance," Groening says. "And I guess they have. It was considered such a risky move at the time to schedule an animated series. But it's even more odd now to see that 20 years later, no other network has figured out how to do it."
But will Fox continue to do it for a 20th season -- and beyond?
"If I were to bet, I'd say yes," Groening adds. "But animation requires such a staggering amount of attention to detail and time that we can't drag our heels for too long. You see, ultimately, my goal isn't just to tie 'Gunsmoke' but for everybody connected with 'The Simpsons' to be as rich and bitter as anyone in Hollywood. And, you know, so far, so good."
Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

'Rock 'n' roll photographer' comes of age

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Annie Leibovitz lopes through the blond-floored galleries at the High Museum of Art, eyed by film stars, comedians, writers, dancers and those who have known and loved her best.
"You know, my mother," she stops near a small image, a group of four. A bathing-suited Marilyn Leibovitz is pictured, solidly balanced on the sands of a Long Island beach. She's executing a side arabesque, a ballet movement she loved as a teacher of modern dance. "It's hard to find a picture of my mother not doing that." ( Watch Leibovitz describe her work and what it means to her )
Once surrounded, as Leibovitz is, by some 175 of her often celebrated images, it's tempting to feel she knows each subject just as well as she knows her mom-on-one-leg. ( Watch an audio slide show in which Leibovitz discusses several key works. )
"A Photographer's Life, 1990-2005" opens Saturday at Atlanta's High Museum of Art, and represents a somewhat controversial departure for Leibovitz. There's much more than the "assignment" images, some as famous as the nude profile of a pregnant Demi Moore commissioned for the cover of Vanity Fair.
In addition, Leibovitz has chosen to include some highly personal images, including shots from the births of her three daughters, the death of her father and many from her long relationship with author-essayist Susan Sontag, who died in 2004.
"After she died," Leibovitz says, "I went looking for a picture for a memorial book that we were going to give out at the memorial service." What was chosen was a dramatic image of the dark rocks of the ancient city of Petra in Jordan. Tiny, at the break in the stone at ground level, stands Sontag, taking in the towering frieze carved into the forward rock face.
"I found this picture," Leibovitz says, taking it in, "... sort of a beckoning picture into life."
The experience of choosing that shot of Sontag and remembering the travels and times the two enjoyed together prompted her to merge commercial and private artwork into a huge book from Random House -- which serves as a catalog to the show -- and then into this touring exhibition organized last fall at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
This is the second such major retrospective of her work, the first covering two decades, 1970 to 1990, put together under the auspices of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington.
Now 57, she likes to talk of how much easier it is to know when a shoot is finished. She also has developed a keen sense for where she wants a portrait to go.
In the case of Jim Carrey, for example, she started with British artist Francis Bacon's studies after Velasquez's Pope Innocent X. Carrey's trademark rubber-faced, wide-mouthed comedy thus ends up related to a boxed-in, agonized visage of Bacon's papal imagery.
Comedians, she points out, can be among the trickiest subjects: "The worst thing that happens with comedians is people always want them to be funny in pictures. What does that mean, 'to be funny?'"

Behind the lens
Born in Westport, Connecticut, in 1949, the daughter of an Air Force officer, Leibovitz became interested in photography in the late 1960s. While Rolling Stone was still a young magazine, editor Jann Wenner hired her, making her chief photographer in 1973 -- and giving her the label "rock 'n' roll photographer" along the way, as she followed Mick Jagger, John Lennon and others.
Advertisement work and cover layouts for Vanity Fair, Vogue, Conde Nast Traveler and other publications followed, cementing her in the collective consciousness as a creator of image-defining artwork.
The current show includes portraits of the Bush Cabinet -- before several members left -- and of Colin Powell, Chris Rock, Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Brad Pitt and one of Leibovitz's inspirations, the late Richard Avedon.
There also are very large photographs of landscapes, vistas in which the human subject is replaced by natural character on a vast scale.
Ultimately, the combination of the personal and commercial work, with some images as small as a standard snapshot and others measured by feet rather than inches, is a kind of darkroom disappearing act.
That's not to say Leibovitz isn't recognizable. Awards showered on her have included the Commandeur in France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and a Living Legend commendation from the Library of Congress.
It's more a question of what happens when her approach doesn't follow the symbolic personality tack she takes to so many celebrities.
Tony Kushner, writer of the "Angels in America" plays, wears AIDS-activist buttons. Pitt lolls on an orange bedspread in Las Vegas in faux-leopard-spotted pants, also orange. Dancer-choreographer Bill T. Jones vaults right out of Leibovitz's childhood -- her mother, Marilyn, taught modern dance. ( Read about Jones' choreography this season for Broadway's 'Spring Awakening' )
But the discovery awaiting fans of her work in this exhibition may be what Leibovitz does when looking the other way, if you will, not toward fame and fashion but toward her family, friends, singular moments, cherished locales, scenes developed in a solution of fond attachments, aching allegiances and focused hindsight.
"It's this idea of letting things unfold in front of you," she says. "You're not doing journalism, you really do have a point of view. And it's done with a 35-millimeter camera, black and white. ... I just aim the camera and take the pictures."

Review: '28 Weeks Later' thrillingly effective

(CNN) -- "28 Days Later," a zombie movie on speed, pictured the United Kingdom as a desolate wasteland just a month after a homicidal virus ("Rage") entered the general population.
Although the low-budget hit from "Trainspotting" director Danny Boyle ended on a note of muted hope, none of the original characters have survived for "28 Weeks Later," which picks up this localized doomsday scenario several months later.
Too efficient for its own good, the epidemic has long since extinguished itself. With no more human flesh to cannibalize, the infected have starved to death. So the quarantine has been lifted and refugees are being sent to the Isle of Dogs, a safe zone in the heart of London's financial district secured by the U.S. military, to begin anew.
Here Dan (Robert Carlyle) is reunited with his two kids. Tammy (the splendidly named Imogen Poots) is a teenager with pale, wary eyes. At 12, her brother Andy (the even more splendidly named Mackintosh Muggleton) is Britain's youngest resident.
It's quiet in England now. But not for long.
With Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland otherwise engaged on the forthcoming sci-fi epic "Sunshine," sequel duties have been entrusted to Spanish filmmaker Juan Carlo Fresnadillo, whose only previous feature was the eye-catching thriller "Intacto."
Fresnadillo proves a shrewd choice. "28 Weeks Later" combines traditional B-movie virtues -- economy, invention, sinewy narrative spine -- with the eerily resonant spectacle of a 21st-century metropolis stripped of its citizenry. The movie provides an apocalyptic chill with images such as poison gas drifting past Westminster at dawn, or the Docklands being firebombed.
Admittedly, the film has its share of traditional B-movie detriments too: sketchy performances, implausible narrative short cuts, and only nominal emotional investment.
Even with the family fissures running through this story, Fresnadillo fails to flesh out the humanity in his characters in the way that Boyle managed. The action flows thick and fast, culminating in a genuinely scary descent into the pitch-black Underground (frightening enough at the best of times), but at close quarters the director's reliance on a murky palette and blurrily frenetic handheld camera slips from intentionally disorienting to downright confusing.
All these problems collide in a far-fetched scene where a sentimental GI (Jeremy Renner) starts shooting his own guys to protect the children. Much more credible, unfortunately, is the way reconstruction efforts abruptly collapse as military containment degenerates into chaos.
In the movie's most powerful sequence, the security forces decide to give up the hopeless task of distinguishing between the rampaging infected and their terrified prey to shoot down everything that moves.
The parallels with Iraq are so bald, they don't require spelling out -- though it's interesting that London should play this world's-end role again, so soon after "Children of Men." Given the deeply cynical ending, you could twist this political allegory more ways than one, but fear would seem to be an appropriate response.
They don't call them horror movies for nothing.

'Terminator' back for a new trilogy

LOS ANGELES, California (Hollywood Reporter) -- The Terminator is coming back.
A nascent film company has acquired the franchise rights to the popular movie series from producers Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna, intending to make a new trilogy. The deal is said to be in the tens of millions of dollars.
The Halcyon Co. -- a privately financed firm -- plans to begin immediate preproduction on "Terminator 4," with hopes that it will be ready for release in the first half of 2009.
The script, by John Brancato and Michael Ferris, was part of the transaction. No distributor is on board, or any talent.
Halcyon -- headed by advertising veteran Derek Anderson and "Cook-Off!" producer Victor Kubicek -- pursued the "Terminator" rights aggressively for several months, knowing that the series is one of the few recognizable properties out there not in the hands of a major studio. Halcyon also is concentrating on a merchandising and licensing push for the property.
The rights to "Terminator" have changed hands several times.
Kassar acted as an executive producer for 1991's "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," and he and Vajna acquired interests from Gale Anne Hurd -- who produced the first one in 1984 and executive produced the second -- when the duo made 2003's "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines."
Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Where have all the viewers gone?

NEW YORK (AP) -- Maybe they're outside in the garden. They could be playing softball. Or perhaps they're just plain bored.
In TV's worst spring in recent memory, a startling number of Americans drifted away from television the past two months: More than 2.5 million fewer people were watching ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox than at the same time last year, statistics show.
Everyone has a theory to explain the plummeting ratings: early Daylight Savings Time, more reruns, bad shows, more shows being recorded or downloaded or streamed. (Blog: What -- and when -- are you watching?)
Scariest of all for the networks, however, is the idea that many people are now making their own television schedules. The industry isn't fully equipped to keep track of them, and as a result the networks are scrambling to hold on to the nearly $8.8 billion they collected during last spring's ad-buying season.
"This may be the spring where we see a radical shift in the way the culture thinks of watching TV," said Sarah Bunting, co-founder of the Web site Television Without Pity.
The viewer plunge couldn't have come at a worse time for the networks -- next week they will showcase their fall schedules to advertisers in the annual "up front" presentations.
The networks argue that viewership is changing, not necessarily declining. Some advertisers respond that they are no longer willing to pay full price up front to reach viewers that may not tune in later.
This fall, both sides will be watching what happens with families like Tony Cort's. During prime-time, Cort, his wife and four kids tend to scatter to computers or other activities in different parts of their New Jersey home. (Not during "American Idol" or "Lost," though.) They're definitely watching less TV, said Cort, who runs a Web site for martial arts aficionados.
"I remember when '24' was on, that was something there was a lot of interest and excitement about," he said.
News flash: "24" is still on. Its ratings are down, too, amid a critically savaged season.
More bad news abounds. NBC set a record last month for its least-watched week during the past 20 years, and maybe ever -- then broke it a week later. This is the least popular season ever for CBS' "Survivor." ABC's "Lost" has lost nearly half its live audience -- more than 10 million people -- from the days it was a sensation. "The Sopranos" (a show that has earned broadcast-network-like ratings in the past) is ending on HBO, and the response is a collective yawn.
Events like "American Idol" on Fox (which is owned by News Corp.) and "Dancing With the Stars" on ABC (owned by The Walt Disney Co.) are doing the most to prop up the industry. But still, in the six weeks after Daylight Savings Time started in early March, prime-time viewership for the four biggest broadcast networks was down to 37.6 million people, from 40.3 million during the same period in 2006, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Missing money
Millions of missing viewers could translate into millions of missing dollars for the networks heading into the up-front sales season.
Advertisers don't believe that the drop in viewership is as dramatic as the numbers suggest, but they're no longer willing to spend what they once did in the spring market, said Brad Adgate of Horizon Media, an ad buying firm. Johnson & Johnson and Coca-Cola sat out the spring market last year -- betting they could get lower prices later -- and it's likely other companies will do the same this year, he said.
The early start to Daylight Savings Time has hurt ratings. Prime-time viewership traditionally dips then as people do more things outside, and this year folks had a three-week head start to get into the habit of doing something else. More network reruns during March and April dampened interest, too.
"We let them get out of the habit of watching television a little bit, and it's going to take some time to get these people back in front of their television sets," said David Poltrack, chief researcher for CBS (owned by CBS Corp.).
Strategic decisions to send some popular serial dramas on long hiatuses appeared to backfire. NBC's "Heroes," CBS' "Jericho" and "Lost" lost significant momentum when they returned. Besides HBO's "The Sopranos," there are no lengthy countdowns toward the end of very popular series, unless you count "The King of Queens."
There also are technical reasons that this apparent diminished interest in television may be overstated.
This year, for the first time, Nielsen is measuring viewership in the estimated 17 percent of homes with digital video recorders _ but it only counts them in the ratings of a specific show if they watch it within 24 hours of the original air time.
If you recorded "Desperate Housewives" this spring and watched it two days later, you're not counted in the show's ratings. And you're not counted by Nielsen under any circumstances if you downloaded a show on iTunes and watched it on your iPod or cell phone, or streamed an episode from a network Web site.
Since last year's Nielsen sample contained no DVR homes and this year's sample does, logic dictates that fewer Nielsen families are watching TV live this year, deflating ratings.
"People are not consuming less television, they're watching it in different ways, and the measurements haven't caught up," said Alan Wurtzel, chief research executive at NBC (owned by General Electric Co.).
The numbers can be significant. When "The Office" aired on NBC on April 5, Nielsen said there were 5.8 million people watching. Add in the people who recorded the episode and watched it within the next week, and viewership swelled to 7.6 million, a 32 percent increase, Nielsen said.
"The Sopranos" is another interesting case study. For its first four episodes this season, the show averaged 7.4 million viewers for its weekly Sunday night premiere, down from 8.9 million at the same point its last season.
But HBO shows each new episode eight times a week. Between the multiple plays and DVR viewing, each episode this spring gets 11.1 million viewers, down from 13 million last year. And these figures don't count people who watch on demand.
Numbers for "The Sopranos" may be down because people can watch whenever they want. They may not be as interested in the show as they used to be -- or it could be a combination of both.
Television has made billions based on how many people watch a show at its regular time. That idea may already be obsolete. So should the industry use DVR viewing when setting ad rates? If so, how quickly must people watch the shows -- within two days? A week? What about people who watch shows on their cell phones or on network Web sites, which Nielsen doesn't measure yet? Later this month Nielsen will begin measuring how many people watch commercials. Should those be used to compute advertising costs?
Right now, none of those questions have answers.
However, "if we continue to do business assuming people will watch television as they always have," said NBC's Wurtzel, "it's a dead-end game."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

'Axis of Evil' inspires laughs

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (CNN) -- Standing onstage, comedian Aron Kader describes how his cousin in the Middle East likes to curse the United States -- in English.
"Arabs love to cuss in English," Kader belts out. "They cuss their heads off in English, but they won't do it in Arabic because then God can hear them."
The audience, two-thirds of Mideast descent, explodes in laughter. (Watch the comics "scare people into laughing"
Kader is a member of the "Axis of Evil" comedy group, a collection of comics with Mideast roots who have formed a niche by taking on Mideast stereotypes and making subjects such as war, terrorism and suicide bombers funny.
It's a delicate balance, but one that seems to be catching on with a larger audience. The comics' videos on YouTube have been viewed more than 200,000 times, they recently had a one-hour special on Comedy Central and they currently are on a 15-city tour with packed crowds.
How do they make such serious topics funny?
The key, Kader says, is getting the audience on board. "Let them know that 'Hey, I get it, you guys have a stereotype of us, and I know what you see.' " (Watch the Axis dig into their roots )
Ethnic humor has a long history in the United States, but Kader says being Middle Eastern is different. He says people too often think of militants, terrorists and suicide bombers. "You just say you're Palestinian, and it's like you made a political statement."
And so the group has worked to try to change those stereotypes, one laugh at a time.
In November 2005, the comics took up the name Axis of Evil, playing off the term President Bush used in his 2002 State of the Union address to describe Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
There are four members of the Axis comedy group. Kader is a Palestinian-American, and Maz Jobrani is an Iranian-American with a degree in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. (Jobrani was one of the stars of the ABC series "The Knights of Prosperity.")
Rounding out the Axis are Ahmed Ahmed, an Egyptian-American, and Dean Obeidallah, a Palestinian-American who once was a practicing attorney.
Their biting humor is something to which many in their audience can relate. Jobrani says when he tells one joke begging for the news media to show Middle Easterners doing something positive -- like "baking a cookie or something" -- the crowd loves it for more than just its humor.
"That gets a laugh, but it also gets a clap from regular audiences, and I think that's because a lot of people are sick of seeing Middle Easterners depicted the way we're always depicted," he says.
Obeidallah says he never felt like a Middle Easterner until after the September 11, 2001, attacks. Now, he says, he does his comedy "not just for me."
"It's for my cousins, it's for my friends, it's for other Arabs and other people who get dirty looks or looked at funny because they have an accent or are viewed as suspicious simply because of their heritage," he says.
"We don't want to be defined any longer by the worst examples in our community, and it's a very small amount of people. There are a few terrorists and they define all of us."
Ahmed says he gets problems at the airport -- because his name matches the alias of a terrorist on the FBI's "Most Wanted" list.
But he takes it in stride. Like his fellow Axis comedians, he says, you can "scare people into laughing."
He quotes a comedy colleague who is a rabbi.
"He always says you can't hate anybody when you're laughing with them. So it's nice, when we're doing our comedy show, to see the diversity in the crowd and people actually laughing together," Ahmed says.
"You see Arabs and Jews and Mexicans and whites, and they're all sitting together and they're sharing the same laugh. Comedy's like food or music. It's universal. Laughter's universal."