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Stars put celebration ahead of strike

2008-01-28T20:17:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Labor strife has been topping the bill in Hollywood of late, yet you wouldn't have known it from the weekend's awards shows: The town's elite seemed more interested in celebrating, and "No Country for Old Men" emerged as the movie to beat at the Academy Awards.

Javier Bardem won the supporting-actor SAG award for "No Country for Old Men."

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Only one winner at the Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild of America awards overtly mentioned the union matters that derailed the Golden Globes and jeopardizes the season's biggest party, the Academy Awards on February 24.
Sunday night's SAG awards did have its serious side, with the recent death of Heath Ledger weighing heavily on everyone's minds and prompting a passionate tribute from lead-actor winner Daniel Day-Lewis of the oil-boom epic "There Will Be Blood."
But mostly it was all about Joel and Ethan Coen, brothers who have done it their way with more than 20 years worth of odd and idiosyncratic films and now seem poised to collect the industry's highest honors.
The Coens' crime saga "No Country for Old Men" won the directing honor Saturday at the Directors Guild awards, while co-star Javier Bardem earned SAG's supporting-actor prize and the guild chose the film for best cast performance. Watch the awards bring back Hollywood's glitz and glamour »
"No Country" is a wild, bloody ride as a ruthless killer (supporting actor winner Javier Bardem) relentlessly traces a stash of missing drug money. True to the Coen spirit, the film spins into wildly unexpected places and leaves cryptic loose threads at the end.
SAG prize winnersMovies: Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, "There Will Be Blood." Actress: Julie Christie, "Away From Her." Supporting actor: Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men." Supporting actress: Ruby Dee, "American Gangster." Cast: "No Country for Old Men." Stunt ensemble: "The Bourne Ultimatum." ------ Television: Actor in a movie or miniseries: Kevin Kline, "As You Like It." Actress in a movie or miniseries: Queen Latifah, "Life Support." Actor in a drama series: James Gandolfini, "The Sopranos." Actress in a drama series: Edie Falco, "The Sopranos." Actor in a comedy series: Alec Baldwin, "30 Rock." Actress in a comedy series: Tina Fey, "30 Rock." Drama series cast: "The Sopranos." Comedy series cast: "The Office." Stunt ensemble: "24."
"The Coen brothers are freaky little people, and we did a freaky little movie -- whether you liked the ending or not," said "No Country" co-star Josh Brolin as he accepted the cast prize on behalf of the ensemble.
Perhaps the most moving moment of the weekend came when Day-Lewis dedicated his SAG win to Ledger, found dead last week in his Manhattan loft. The cause of the 28-year-old actor's death had not yet been determined.
Though he never met Ledger, Day-Lewis continued to share his admiration backstage, saying he felt sure the actor "would have done many wonderful things with his life." Day-Lewis said the media and the public's insatiable curiosity about Ledger should cease.
"I think we should leave him alone, and I think we should leave his family alone to suffer their unimaginable grief in private," Day-Lewis said. "We should just stop encouraging people, I think, to have greater and greater interest in raking over every detail, which is none of our business."
Both guild ceremonies were virtually free of chatter about the labor troubles involving the Writers Guild of America, whose three-month-old strike forced the Globes off the air and have thrown the fate of the Oscars into question.
Past Oscar recipient Julie Christie, SAG best-actress winner for the Alzheimer's drama "Away From Her," was the sole winner to touch on strike matters, noting how critical unions are.
Christie elaborated backstage, saying labor movements of the past set the stage for workers today to air grievances.
"Without them, we wouldn't have anyone to represent our injustices, if you like, to fight for them to be turned around," said Christie, whose win may position her for the best-actress Oscar 42 years after she won the same prize for "Darling." "To stand up and say this is unfair, do something about it. You have to have a union to do that."
Writers went on strike over their share of profits from movies and films distributed on the Internet and other new media. Their talks with producers broke down December 5, though many in Hollywood hope a new contract negotiated by the Directors Guild might help jump-start negotiations with writers.
As they did with the Globes, Writers Guild leaders say they will not allow members to work on the Oscars. That could prompt actors, who have been steadfast in support of writers, to skip the ceremony, leaving Hollywood's most-watched party an affair without celebrities.
Oscar organizers insist their telecast will go on as planned.
SAG typically is an also-ran to the Oscars and Globes. But if the Oscars end up a celebrity-free zone or the show is called off altogether, SAG could be remembered as the one party untouched by the strike.
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Writers rewarded actors for their support by giving the SAG show their blessing, allowing it to go off without any pickets or protests.
Most nominees were on hand, along with such presenters as Tom Cruise, Kate Hudson, Holly Hunter and Forest Whitaker.
Actors bid fond farewell to one of TV's most-acclaimed series ever as "The Sopranos" swept the dramatic categories, grabbing the lead-acting honors for James Gandolfini and Edie Falco and the overall cast award.
A revered actress, 83-year-old Ruby Dee, won the supporting-actress honor for the crime story "American Gangster."
Dee, also a supporting-actor Oscar nominee, shared fond thoughts of her late husband and frequent acting partner, Ossie Davis, who died in 2005.
"I accept it also for my husband Ossie," Dee said, "because he's working on things up there."
The Coens, who won a screenplay Oscar for 1996's "Fargo," share four Academy Awards nominations for "No Country" -- for directing, screenwriting, editing under the pseudonym Roderick Jaynes and best picture as producers on the film.

'Simpsons Movie' unites show's past, present

2007-07-26T10:56:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-11T10:30:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-30T02:10:00.000-07:00

(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

2007-06-22T16:25:00.000-07:00

(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

2007-06-17T09:29:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-08T09:38:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-04T09:59:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-01T09:45:00.000-07:00

(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'

2007-05-28T10:32:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-23T11:33:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-21T10:42:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-18T10:06:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-17T09:52:00.000-07:00

(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'

2007-05-16T09:07:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-12T21:54:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-11T10:45:00.000-07:00

(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

2007-05-10T09:11:00.000-07:00

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?

2007-05-09T08:51:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-08T08:20:00.000-07:00

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."

'Spider-Man's' other woman: 'Such a big movie'

2007-05-07T08:44:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- No wonder Bryce Dallas Howard is smiling.
The eldest daughter of Ron Howard, the Oscar-winning director of "A Beautiful Mind," is a newlywed, a new mom, and now a classic comic-book babe as Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker's new crush in "Spider-Man 3."
("Spider-Man 3" got off to a fast start: the film set box-office records last weekend.)
Howard first gained fame in M. Night Shyamalan's 2004 film, "The Village," and went on to become the ethereal star of his "Lady in the Water" two years later.
But "Spider-Man 3" is her first big summer blockbuster, and judging by her grin, she's ready for more.
Despite having a baby boy just 10 weeks ago (with husband Seth Gabel) Howard, 26, is out promoting the film and already looking forward to her next project, a leading role in "The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond," due in 2008.
Folded into an overstuffed chair at Beverly Hills' Four Seasons Hotel and peeking out from beneath her long red bangs, Howard beamed as she talked with The Associated Press about motherhood, movies and what she's learned from her famous father.
Q: How does "Spider-Man 3" compare to other films you've done?
BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD: It is supersized. Literally I would walk around the Sony lot ... and they took over the entire lot practically. I was really surprised because when I was on set with (Director) Sam (Raimi) and all the other actors, it felt so intimate and fun and playful. Then when I finally saw the movie I remembered again, "God, this is such a big movie." I can't believe it, because it didn't seem like a high-pressure situation. It seemed really relaxed and cool and like we were just making this movie.
Q: Are you a fan of superhero films?
HOWARD: I was really into this franchise in particular because although it is obviously this big film and there are these huge action sequences that are absolutely terrifying, it really is, at the end of the day, just a great character piece. Sam creates these really complex characters and there's a lot of humor in it as well. It's very, very funny, so it's an incredibly balanced film. It's terrifying, it's hilarious, it's emotional, it's beautiful.
Q: Are you at the point yet where you're giving your dad advice?
HOWARD: Oh God, no. Are you crazy? All the time I come up with these weird ideas or theories. I have all these theories about the industry or the future of storytelling, that kind of thing, so I'll talk to him about that, but no, that man needs no advice from me, trust me.
Q: Does he give you a lot of advice?
HOWARD: No, he's really great in that way. I mean, I ask him for advice sometimes, but he never gives unsolicited advice. He's always kind of letting us -- myself and my siblings -- find our own way, make our own mistakes and come to our own conclusions. He's pretty much the ideal parent.
Q: Are there any downsides to having such a famous father?
HOWARD: No. Sure, there have been times where there has been a bit of criticism and people say I'm only in this industry because he's in this industry and all that kind of stuff, but that's OK. I'm really grateful to have the father that I have and if I'm going to get that kind of criticism, I have to take it with a grain of salt. ... I feel so lucky to have parents who are so supportive. I know a lot of my friends who are actors, their parents don't quite understand ... whereas my parents ... know it's possible. That itself is such an advantage just knowing your parents believe in you.
Q: Is there a genre that appeals to you more than others?
HOWARD: No, I like doing it all because I have a lot to learn. I want to immerse myself in as many genres as possible and as many different industries as possible. I love the European film community, I love the independent film community. I love now, with "Spider-Man," being part of the more conventional Hollywood film community. So I just want to continue doing that and gathering as much information as possible and experiences as possible.
Q: How about a director you dream of working with?
HOWARD: I would love to work with my dad. I'm dying to work with my dad. We talk about it and I harass him about it. But I think eventually, if there is a role that's totally appropriate and perfect, I hope it would become a reality. I have a bit further to go, though.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

'Spider-Man 3' breaks 1-day record

2007-05-06T07:53:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -- "Spider-Man 3" sold a record $59 million worth of tickets during its first day of release across North America, and is on track to break the industry mark for an opening weekend, according to estimates issued Saturday by the film's distributor.
The highly anticipated superhero saga opened in the United States and Canada Friday, having already begun its international campaign May 1.
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Showbiz Tonight's Sibila Vargas sits down with Tobey Maguire to discuss his role in 'Spider-Man 3'. (May 2)
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The North American one-day and opening-weekend records were held by Walt Disney Co.'s July 2006 smash "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," with respective sums of $55.8 million and $135.6 million.
"Based on the first day's performance, the studio believes the film will deliver in the range of $135 million to $145 million in North America for its first three days of release," Columbia Pictures said in a statement.
The Sony Corp. (Charts) -owned studio will issue three-day estimates early Sunday.
Summer of sequels!
The first "Spider-Man," released in 2002, earned $39.4 million on its first day, $114.8 million on its first weekend, and $403 million by the end of its North American run. Two years later, "Spider-Man 2" finished with $373 million. It opened on a Wednesday -- rather than the traditional Friday -- with $40.4 million, and earned $88.2 million during the subsequent weekend.
Overseas business is similarly brisk, with Friday sales estimated at $45 million. A Columbia spokesman did not have information on the foreign earnings to date.
All three films star Tobey Maguire as the web-slinging crime fighter, and Kirsten Dunst as his girlfriend. Sam Raimi directed the trilogy.

Paris Hilton sentenced to 45 days in jail

2007-05-05T07:23:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- A judge sentenced Paris Hilton to 45 days in county jail Friday for violating her probation, putting the brakes on the hotel heiress's famous high life.
Hilton, who parlayed her name and relentless partying into worldwide notoriety, must go to jail by June 5.
She will not be allowed any work release, furloughs, use of an alternative jail or electronic monitoring in lieu of jail, Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer ruled after a hearing.
The judge, saying "there's no doubt she knew her license had been suspended," ruled that she was in violation of the terms of her probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case.
"I'm very sorry, and from now on I'm going to pay complete attention to everything. I'm sorry, and I did not do it on purpose at all," she told the judge before he announced the sentence.
She was then ordered to report to a women's jail in suburban Lynwood by the set date or face 90 days behind bars. The judge's ruling excluded her from paying to serve time in a jail of her choice, as some violators are allowed to do.
As a city prosecutor said during closing arguments that Hilton deserved jail time, Hilton's mother, Kathy, laughed. When the judge ruled, Kathy Hilton then blurted out: "May I have your autograph?"
Paris Hilton was among a series of witnesses who took the stand during the hearing. She testified she believed her license was initially suspended for 30 days and that she was allowed to drive for work purposes during the next 90 days. (Watch why Hilton thought it was OK to be driving )
She said that when an officer who stopped her in January made her sign a document stating her license was suspended, she thought he was mistaken and did not actually look at the document.
Also called to the stand was Hilton's spokesman, Elliot Mintz. Hilton and her attorneys characterized Mintz as a liaison between Hilton and her lawyers.
Mintz testified that to his knowledge Hilton did not drive during the 30-day period. He said he then advised her that he believed her license was no longer suspended.
The judge called Mintz's testimony worthless and expressed disbelief at Hilton's excuse.
"I can't believe that either attorney did not tell her that the suspension had been upheld," the judge said. "She wanted to disregard everything that was said and continue to drive no matter what."
Hilton looked forward and didn't speak to news media as she left court with her mother.
When a reporter asked what she thought of the judge's decision, a visibly angry Kathy Hilton responded: "What do you think? This is pathetic and disgusting, a waste of taxpayer money with all this nonsense. This is a joke."
Defense attorney Howard Weitzman said he would appeal.
"I'm shocked, I'm surprised and really disheartened in the system that I've worked in for close to 40 years," Weitzman said.
He said the sentence was "uncalled for, inappropriate and bordered on the ludicrous."
"I think she's singled out because of who she is," Weitzman said.
Hilton had arrived at the Metropolitan Courthouse 10 minutes late and ignored screams of photographers as she swept in with her attorneys, mother and father, Rick Hilton.
The celebrity case brought an unusual scene to the austere courthouse south of downtown in a commercial area. As if at a red carpet event, dozens of photographers and reporters lined up at the rear entrance. Yellow police tape substituted for velvet ropes.
String of traffic violations
Hilton, 26, pleaded no contest in January to reckless driving stemming from a Sept. 7 arrest in Hollywood. Police said she appeared intoxicated and failed a field sobriety test. She had a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 percent, the level at which an adult driver is in violation of the law.
She was sentenced to 36 months' probation, alcohol education and $1,500 in fines.
Two other traffic stops and failure to enroll in a mandated alcohol education program are what landed the socialite back in court.
On January 15, Hilton was pulled over by the California Highway Patrol. Officers informed her that she was driving on a suspended license and she signed a document acknowledging that she was not to drive, according to papers filed in Superior Court.
Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies stopped Hilton on February 27 and charged her with violating her probation. Police said she was pulled over about 11 p.m. after authorities saw the car speeding with its headlights off.
Mintz said at the time Hilton wasn't aware her license was suspended. A copy of the document Hilton signed on January 15 was found in the car's glove compartment, court papers say.
Hilton was also required to enroll in an alcohol education program by February 12. As of April 17, she had not enrolled, prosecutors said.
Hilton, heiress to the Hilton Hotel fortune, first gained notoriety for her hard partying as a teen. She attracted worldwide attention when a sex tape she made with a boyfriend was released on the Internet.
She stars in the reality-TV series "The Simple Life," now in its fifth season, with Nicole Richie. She appeared in the 2005 film "House of Wax" and recently finished filming "The Hottie and the Nottie." She also is a handbag designer and has a namesake perfume.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

'Spider-Man 3' opens; box office records next?

2007-05-04T08:42:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES, California (Hollywood Reporter) -- The summer movie season is upon us. Let the hyperbole begin!
Sony Pictures unleashes "Spider-Man 3" in a record 4,252 theaters across North America Friday, and by Sunday morning, if not before, it will become clear whether Spidey has overtaken Captain Jack Sparrow for the honor of biggest opening weekend of all time, a formidable challenge since the bar set last summer by "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" stands at $135.6 million.
In the meantime, everyone -- Hollywood executives, moviegoers and certainly the media -- is likely to lose all sense of perspective, a phenomenon that happens every summer as the would-be blockbusters roll out. (Review: 'Spider-Man 3' mixes highs and lows)
The media are often eager to proclaim such high-profile movies an instant hit or miss. Each summer, there are a few big-budget movies whose failure to launch is immediately apparent. (Remember the ill-fated "Poseidon" last summer?) But for most big-budget gambles, the evidence is more ambiguous and won't start coming into focus until the second or third weekend of a film's release.
Consumers, meannwhile, are all too willing to turn into lemmings, eager to participate en masse in the next big thing. As digital media proliferate, much has been written about the growth of niche micromarkets with audiences splintering into thousands of discrete interest groups. But when it comes to summer entertainment, a herd mentality still prevails. (It's not restricted to movies, either -- the eventual "American Idol" finale on TV this month and the publication of the final "Harry Potter" novel in July also are guaranteed to post huge numbers.)
Of course, the studios are looking to corral that mass audience with the help of enormous blockbusters that demand attention. Given the huge budgets involved as well as the massive marketing expenditures, the costs factors are so high that it would take a court-ordered audit to figure out the ultimate profitability of such projects.
"Spider-Man 3," for example, is officially pegged at $258 million, though skeptics insist the final budget could well be higher. For that money, Sony could have arguably turned out a half-dozen $40 million-$60 million movies. Would a broader slate of more modestly budgeted movies ultimately prove more profitable? The studios, increasingly putting more of their eggs in fewer baskets, don't think so.
When the dust from the blockbusters settles by summer's end, the surviving ones, if successful, continue to be the gifts that keep on giving. They become profit centers driving other endeavors.
The Walt Disney Co., for example, used the success of its "Pirates" franchise to retool its venerable Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, and in the summer it will borrow characters from "Finding Nemo" to revive its old submarine ride in Tomorrowland.
To woo DVD viewers to its new Blu-ray Disc format, Sony packaged a Blu-ray DVD of last summer's hit "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" with its PlayStation 3. The eventual Blu-ray version of "Spidey 3" could prove another weapon in the ongoing standards battle between Blu-ray and Toshiba's HD DVD.
In the end, the box office figures, no matter how high they go in what promises to be a record-breaking summer, will only tell a part of the story.
Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

'Spider-Man 3' has huge international first day

2007-05-03T06:31:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- "Spider-Man 3" cast a worldwide web with a blockbuster first day, hauling in $29.15 million in 16 overseas markets and beating the debuts of the previous two "Spider-Man" flicks in each locale.
The film had the best opening day ever Tuesday in some countries, including France, Italy, South Korea and Hong Kong, distributor Sony Pictures said.
"Spider-Man 3" opens over the next couple of days in dozens of other countries, including the United States on Friday. (Watch Tobey Maguire talk about his love of the film )
" 'Spider-Man' is a worldwide franchise, and the thing we're most excited about is that in two pretty completely separate parts of the world we've gotten off to a great start," Jeff Blake, Sony vice chairman, said Wednesday. "We certainly hope for the same in North America."
Domestically, 2002's "Spider-Man" opened with $114.8 million in its first weekend, a record debut that stood until "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" shattered it last year with a $135.6 million weekend.
"Spider-Man 2" opened on a Wednesday before the Fourth of July weekend in 2004, pulling in a record $180.1 million in its first six days.
The two previous films combined for a total of $1.6 billion worldwide, about half of that coming in the United States.
In France, "Spider-Man 3" took in $6.8 million on opening day, more than the first-day grosses there for "Spider-Man" and "Spider-Man 2" combined.
It grossed $4.6 million in Germany, $4 million in Italy, $3.7 million in Japan, $3.4 million in South Korea, $1.1 million in the Philippines and $1 million each in Hong Kong and Thailand.
The third installment in director Sam Raimi's superhero series, "Spider-Man 3" reunites Tobey Maguire as the web-slinger, Kirsten Dunst as the love of his life and James Franco as his old pal turned enemy.
Adapted from the Marvel comic books, the film also introduces two new villains, Thomas Haden Church as the Sandman and Topher Grace as Venom. (Story: The villains dish)
Along with bad guys, Spidey ends up battling his own dark side as he fights the temptation to use his powers for evil after an alien entity infects his superhero outfit.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Tobey Maguire: 'Everything's in transition'

2007-05-02T11:33:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Tobey Maguire says he and his big-screen alter-ego, Spider-Man, "have very different lives."
Still, both are caught in the same web of uncertainty: What next?
The upcoming release of "Spider-Man 3" raises as many questions as it answers for the web-slinging hero and the actor behind him. (Watch Maguire and co-star Topher Grace try to answer some of those questions .)
Is the Spidey franchise finished? Will Maguire sign on for a fourth installment? Will Peter Parker propose to Mary Jane? How will fatherhood and marriage affect Maguire's future? What roles lie ahead after superhero success?
"Everything's in transition for me," says the actor, sitting in a plush suite at Beverly Hills' Four Seasons Hotel. "My friendships, where I want to live."
And his work. After playing "Spider-Man" for six years, and fitting in "Seabiscuit" and "The Good German" in between, the 31-year-old star is looking at a wide-open calendar. His top priority is spending time with his fiancee, Jennifer Meyer, and their 5-month-old daughter, Ruby Sweetheart. But workwise?
"I don't have any specific ideas," he says, looking sharp in a gray suit, white shirt and Hollywood stubble. "I want to work in all types of movies. I don't care the size of the movie. I want to work in different genres and different types of films. It just all depends on scripts and directors."
He's not ruling out another adventure with Spider-Man and the film series' three-time director, Sam Raimi. But he's not ruling it in, either.
"If there's a script I love, if the character goes in directions that I think would be great, and if Sam's involved and the right cast is there, then I would consider it at that point," Maguire says, adding that it could take years to develop a script for "Spider-Man 4."
"I think they would love for Sam to do it, so we'll just see." (Story: "Spider-Man 3" from the villains' perspective)
Raimi: Maguire was perfect
As far as Raimi is concerned, there is no other Peter Parker besides Maguire. He cast the actor after seeing him in "The Cider House Rules."
"What I saw within his performance was a sensitivity and a vulnerability that I felt the character had to have," Raimi recalls. "There was an outcry at the time that he was wrong, that he was never going to be Peter Parker. But I was never bothered by that. Because although I'm a very insecure person, I was very confident I knew the character, knew who he was, and that these people were thinking of some hero called Spider-Man. And that the real heart of Spider-Man was this kid behind the mask. That's what I was going to make this movie about."
Laura Ziskin, one of the film's producers, says she had some initial reservations about Maguire's superhero qualities -- until she saw his screen test.
"We cast him immediately," she says. "When we finished the movie, you know you cast something right when you can't imagine anybody else doing the part."
Maguire manages to capture Peter Parker's low-profile nature as well as Spider-Man's over-the-top heroics, says co-star Bryce Dallas Howard, who plays affection-object Gwen Stacy in "Spider-Man 3."
"I understand why he got cast as this character and why he's so beloved as this character: because he's not so different," she says. "He's a good, good man ... and he goes to great lengths to help people around him."
Still, Maguire says he doesn't feel he owns the role.
"I don't go to bed at night thinking, 'Ah, I'm Spider-Man,' " he says. "These are properties for these studios and ... I won't be doing them forever whether I do another one or not."
Meanwhile, he's enjoying the accomplishment of finishing a six-year project. He celebrated with some time off before jumping into the movie's marketing madness, which included a trip to Tokyo and a jaunt to New York City. He likes "being part of the event" of "Spider-Man 3," he says, but his measured speech gives the impression that he might prefer privacy.
Maguire says he's "proud" of his work on the three Spider-Man films: "I feel like this version of it is ours." Now he's looking forward to free time and figuring out fatherhood.
"It kind of changes everything when you're a dad," he says. "You don't have the same time to hang out with your friends. You don't have the same time to do other stuff that, for me, I used to do. But you're trading it up for something that's better, which is getting to hang out with my daughter, and that's amazing."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Would-be sleepers take on summer blockbusters

2007-05-01T07:10:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Sequels to "Shrek," "Spider-Man" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" aren't the only movies coming out this summer. It only seems that way. Beneath the Hollywood's behemoth franchise flicks, a few less-heralded gems sneak in to become niche hits and sometimes $100 million smashes.
The question is whether this season's exceptionally strong lineup of blockbuster sequels will leave breathing room for many -- or any -- summer sleepers.
"There's not a single movie I don't know about this summer, and I'm terrified of them all," said director Matthew Vaughn, who worries his intriguing fantasy "Stardust" could get lost amid the rush that begins in May with "Spider-Man 3," "Shrek the Third" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End." "I call them juggernauts. They are coming, and nothing's going to stop them."
A fairy tale for adults, "Stardust" (from Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures) features Claire Danes as the human incarnation of a fallen star, who lands on Earth, falls for a young adventurer (Charlie Cox), is befriended by an effeminate ship captain (Robert De Niro) and pursued by an evil witch (Michelle Pfeiffer).
"Stardust" opens in August on the same day as the buddy-cop sequel "Rush Hour 3" and just weeks after such big flicks as "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," "The Simpsons Movie" and "The Bourne Ultimatum."
Along with those big hitters, summer's lineup features such heavily marketed studio flicks as the animated tales "Ratatouille" and "Surf's Up," the sci-fi saga "Transformers," and sequels including the heist caper "Ocean's Thirteen," the superhero adventure "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" and the comedy "Evan Almighty."
How are worthy smaller movies supposed to stand out in a crowd like that?
"That's none of my business. I'm a filmmaker, not a marketer," said Frank Oz, who has made such studio films as "The Stepford Wives" remake and "The Score" but this time directs the small ensemble comedy "Death at a Funeral," which opens right before the busy Fourth of July weekend, when "Ratatouille" and "Transformers" are expected to dominate at theaters.
"My job is to make a film, not to look at grosses and marketing. I've been told what films are up against mine, and I've forgotten them all," said Oz, whose film features a relatively unknown cast in the tale of a British funeral beset by outrageous revelations, schemes and mishaps.
The strategy for such smaller films is to screen them for critics and preview audiences well in advance, so word-of-mouth can help make up for their generally minimal marketing budgets.
The film-festival circuit is a major pipeline to build buzz for sleeper films, including such past summer hits as "Little Miss Sunshine," "Garden State" and "Napoleon Dynamite."
Favorites from last fall's Toronto and this winter's Sundance festivals are hitting theaters this summer, among them the teen tale "Rocket Science," about a stuttering youth who tries out for a debate team; "Away From Her," a melancholy drama directed by actress Sarah Polley about a woman (Julie Christie) succumbing to Alzheimer's; "Waitress," with Keri Russell as a diner worker trying to break away from her dreary life; "Once," following an Irish street musician (Glen Hansard of the Frames) who forms a musical partnership with a Czech woman; and "Eagle vs. Shark," a quirky New Zealand romance between a wallflower and a geek.
Some summer films vying for attention among the franchise flicks benefit from big-name performers, such as last year's breakout hits "The Devil Wears Prada" with Meryl Streep and "The Break-Up" with Jennifer Aniston.
Those two films also filled the chick-flick void typical of summer, which tends toward action spectacles, teen comedies and family movies.
Among this season's films with female star power are the comedy "Knocked Up," featuring Katherine Heigl of "Grey's Anatomy" as a career-minded woman who gets pregnant from a drunken one-night stand with a slacker (Seth Rogen), and the romantic drama "No Reservations," starring Catherine Zeta-Jones as a work-obsessed chef whose poor interpersonal skills are tested by her young niece (Abigail Breslin) and an easygoing sous chef (Aaron Eckhart).
"It's certainly not a 'Spider-Man' or a 'Batman,"' Zeta-Jones said of "No Reservations," a remake of the 2002 German charmer "Mostly Martha." "I really love the movie, but it's out of my control, the way it's programmed and marketed. ... I just thought that it's a story that could be brought to a broader audience."
"No Reservations" director Scott Hicks said he was happy distributor Warner Bros. had enough confidence in the film to put it out in the busy summer rather than waiting for fall, when most films aimed at older adults hit theaters.
"We hope to sort of weave our way through the behemoths as they come thundering down the tracks," Hicks said. "It will provide some counterprogramming for the big summer fare. Beyond that, it's in the hands of the audience gods now."
Along with Heigl's appeal, "Knocked Up" benefits from the track record of writer-director Judd Apatow, who scored a big-screen smash with "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," which co-starred Rogen, now elevated to leading man.
"We talked about making a movie where I was the lead, but no one was going to let us, which is not surprising," said Rogen, who also co-starred in Apatow's beloved TV shows "Freaks and Geeks" and "Undeclared." "If you look at me, there's nothing that screams, 'I want to stare at this for two hours."'
Apatow managed to convince Universal Pictures, whose posters for "Knocked Up" take advantage of Rogen's average looks, presenting a tight shot of his face as he stares goofily, with a scruffy stubble of beard. The slogan: "What if he got you pregnant?"
It's reminiscent of the marketing campaign for "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," which had a similarly straightforward title that spells out the story. The poster used a close-up image of star Steve Carell looking innocent and hopeful.
The success of sleeper hits such as "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" or "Napoleon Dynamite" hangs on offering something unique or unexpected that movie lovers would not get from studio films aimed at the broadest possible mainstream audience.
The Broadway adaptation "Hairspray" presents something wildly different: John Travolta in drag as an overweight Baltimore housewife, a role originated by Divine in the 1980s cult film that inspired the stage version.
"Hairspray" also is unique as this summer's one big musical, a genre reborn in recent years with hits such as "Chicago" and "Dreamgirls."
"It's like the Western or science fiction. You just have to do them well and people will want to see them," Travolta said. "People just have more tolerance for comedy and drama not done well, but musicals you have to do full-blast, everyone on their best game, their A-plus game. Then you can pull it off."
As she does in "Stardust," Pfeiffer plays the villain of "Hairspray," the story of a plump teen who leads a fight to integrate a TV dance show in the 1960s.
"Stardust" director Vaughn figures his thoughtful fantasy will offer something fresh after audiences have gorged themselves on blockbuster after blockbuster.
"The movie's sort of unique, so I'm thinking, people love chocolate cake, it tastes fantastic, but once you've had six slices, you've had enough," Vaughn said. "Hopefully, we'll be the sorbet to cleanse the palate."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Spidey's three bad guys dish on art of villainy

2007-04-30T08:34:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man is so good at his job that his Hollywood handlers put him up against THREE enemies this time.
"Spider-Man 3" continues Peter Parker and alter-ego Spider-Man's battle against old pal Harry Osborn (James Franco), who's out to avenge his father's death, which he blames on Spidey.
Meantime, petty crook Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church) escapes from prison to try to help his sickly daughter and blunders into a scientific experiment that transforms him into the Sandman, who can shift into sand formations and uses the ability to steal and beat up on Spider-Man.
Spider-Man himself is tempted by his dark side as he learns the truth about his beloved Uncle Ben's death, and he's infected by an alien entity that brings out his inner villain. Spidey's struggle eventually encompasses Peter's news photography rival, Eddie Brock (Topher Grace), who becomes the black-hearted Venom, a creature with powers similar to Spider-Man's.
With director Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man 3" hitting theaters May 4, bad boys Franco, Church and Grace sat down with The Associated Press to discuss the art of evil-doing, why it's more fun playing bad and who the best movie villains are.
___
AP: "Spider-Man" villains are never wholly evil. How did you go about balancing the good and bad?
Church: Flint Marko, he's probably a pretty decent guy who if anything is corrupted by his own good intentions. He has such a singular focus on trying to save his daughter and at various points in the movie doesn't give a---- who he steps on in that pursuit. He's an empathetic character, and the fact is he's addressing perhaps the greatest fear of any parent. That he might lose his child.
Grace: Understanding why a bad guy does what they do, whether or not you agree with them, is scarier to me than just some guy falling into a vat of acid, then saying, "I want to take over the world." If you understand it, that connects you to the villain and their evil acts. But in a bigger sense, what I really love about this movie is even Spider-Man's bad during it. ... It's great, because we all know no one's pure good and pure evil. Everyone has good and bad intentions.
Franco: Some people come up to me and say, "Oh, you're so bad in 'Spider-Man 1 and 2,' but I don't see Harry as a villain at all. Although he's misinformed about what happened to his father, he really thinks he's doing the right thing. He's avenging his father's death. And in part three, Peter Parker, the hero, does pretty much the same thing, avenging his uncle's death. The father figure in his life. In a different story, Harry could be the protagonist.
AP: Is it more fun playing bad guys?
Church: I don't really think I play a villain in this movie.
AP: OK, you'll have to leave the room.
Church: Yeah. He's a pretty simple guy who breaks out of prison to save his daughter, and while he is responsible for criminal acts, I don't think he's a true criminal in as much as he makes the good and evil choice. I think verisimilitude plays heavily into how the villains are portrayed in these movies. It's all about perspective. One guy's evil act is another guy's good intentions gone awry.
AP: James, Topher? More fun being bad?
Grace: Oh, yeah. In my opinion. It was a big lesson I learned on this, because I'd never done that. When you're a protagonist, it's kind of your job, like you hear a little bell go off when you're getting too far away from center. Would I really do that? That comes from your job to be kind of a conduit for the audience to experience the movie through that character. Whereas playing a bad guy, playing a psycho alien murderer from outer space, I never felt that bell going off. I just never heard the bell.
Franco: Whenever anyone says it's more fun to play bad guys, it's because you get to do things that in normal life, there would be ...
Grace: Consequences.
Franco: A lot of consequences. And you get to have fun doing it. You get to relish being bad.
AP: And you don't get arrested at the end. If given superpowers, would most people use them for evil or at least face that temptation?
Church: Are you asking like in real life? If somebody annoys me, would I form a large sand fist?
Grace: Remember when you hit me a couple times on the set because you thought I wasn't doing the scene right? You kept saying, "Do it right" and hit me.
Church (letting out a big laugh): And I happened to have my sand fist on. So you're right. So maybe you're right.
Grace: I felt like I was kind of playing the evil doppelganger version of Peter. ... The point of my character is to show someone very similar to Peter but who didn't have a great mentor like Uncle Ben to say, take responsibility for this power. It wasn't just that Uncle Ben said that. It's that it was shown to Peter by a really awful experience that he had to take responsibility for his power. If a character didn't have that mentor and got the same power, yeah, he probably would use it for evil.
AP: Who's the best movie villain?
Grace: Probably Darth Vader. What I love about trilogies is that there's new information with each film. So you're in the same world with the same actors, but it opens up and opens up. I love how it got deeper.
AP: James? Favorite villain?
Franco: I like Francis in ("Pee-wee's Big Adventure"). I like Jack Nicholson as the Joker. I really like the guy in "Pan's Labyrinth." He was pretty great. The Terminator in the first "Terminator." Pretty amazing.
Grace: You know who they said was one of the biggest ones in the (American Film Institute) villains list? "Man," in "Bambi." Which you never see. That's a great villain. I remember feeling that villain so intensely and not even getting who it was.
AP: Yup, "Man was in the forest." Thomas? Best villain?
Church: I've got to go back to a movie that came out when I was a kid, and it remains one of the most riveting experiences I've ever had in a theater. It was "Alien," and Ian Holm's character. He was just so mechanically efficient in ensuring that the alien was protected and killed everybody on board. There was a purity to his -- it's not even evil. It's just this, like I said, mechanical efficiency at eliminating life to protect an animal. I still think it's a touchstone performance.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Review: 'Next'? Go to the back of the line

2007-04-29T06:42:00.000-07:00

(CNN) -- Even when we haven't seen an action movie before, we've seen it before.
Case in point: "Next."
A Vegas showman blessed with the power of precognition, enlisted to foil a terrorist bomb plot? It's "Deja Vu" all over again. Unfortunately, without Denzel Washington.
Nicolas Cage is Frank Cadillac -- but only for five minutes. Tragically, he jettisons this fine and fitting stage name in favor of the eminently forgettable Cris Johnson, thereby signaling that this will be a relatively subdued Cage performance.
Frank/Cris is a magician hiding his very real but frustratingly circumscribed extra-sensory powers in plain sight. If he imagines he's escaped detection, that's probably because his gift only stretches two minutes into the future (except, of course, when it's convenient for the screenwriters to allow otherwise). Plus, he doesn't get much: a sneak peek at his next big scene, maybe some permutations, but no bigger picture.
Still, a little foreknowledge can go a long way in Las Vegas -- at least until tough FBI agent Callie (Julianne Moore) starts chasing his shadow. Someone (suspiciously French-speaking!) has smuggled a nuclear weapon into L.A. and she wants Cris to save southern California.
In what must constitute something of a new low even for cynical action-movie types, he decides to forego that chore and chat up Jessica Biel instead. (It doesn't make his decision easier to stomach that the scene with Biel -- easily the wittiest in the movie -- is ripped straight from "Groundhog Day.")
Precious little of this has anything to do with Philip K. Dick's short story "The Golden Man," the film's alleged source material, and if the marketing men want to claim that connection then they had best be prepared for unfavorable "Paycheck" comparisons. (Could this be the worst Dick adaptation yet? Unconvincing CGI effects, crummy story, lousy performances ... it's got to be a contender.)
In fairness, "Next" attempts to put a spin on such hoary melodramatic cliches as the blonde in peril (strapped to a chair and wired to explosives) and the car chase (with an oncoming train cutting off the pursuers). In one scene, Cage makes like Buster Keaton, escaping from a motel by flinging himself down the Grand Canyon in front of a rockslide.
But wait, there's more!
Cris is also like a human TiVo. One of his party pieces is zapping the cable stations, repeating the next line before it's spoken. And that's not the half of it. At times, he stops, fast-forwards and rewinds the "Next" plot itself in his mind, even opting for alternate scenes while he's at it. (Buster Keaton did all this, too, in "Sherlock Jr.", but that's another story.)
Unfortunately, these twists in "Next" don't do much for the film. All this time-shifting would be a lot more fun if we had the remote. It might even make a good videogame. But as a movie, "Next" soon becomes an exercise in futility. It keeps stumbling down blind alleys and doubling back on itself to start over. That may or may not be a legitimate expression of the postmodern condition, but it would help if there was something or someone here we could believe in.
As it is, director Lee Tamahori's film comes within a whimper of blowing up Hollywood. Given the quality of "Next," that result may have been welcome.
"Next" is rated PG-13 and runs 96 minutes.

Gere apologizes in kissing controversy in India

2007-04-28T09:11:00.000-07:00

NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- Richard Gere tried to quell the storm over a public kiss he gave a Bollywood star at an AIDS awareness event, apologizing Friday for any offense.
Gere's embrace and kiss of actress Shilpa Shetty sparked several noisy demonstrations by hard-line Hindu groups and a flurry of legal complaints, which ended with a judge in the northwestern city of Jaipur issuing an arrest warrant for the two stars for violating obscenity laws.
"What is most important to me is that my intentions as an HIV/AIDS advocate be made clear, and that my friends in India understand that it has never been, nor could it ever be, my intention to offend you," Gere said in statement issued by the Heroes Project, an organization the 57-year-old actor co-founded to combat AIDS in India. (Watch the kiss that caused all the fuss )
"If that has happened, of course it is easy for me to offer a sincere apology," he said.
The embrace, in front of about 4,000 truckers, was a failed parody of a move from Gere's film "Shall We Dance," and "a naive misread of Indian customs," he said.
Gere had earlier taken a harder tone, hitting back at a small group who had complained.
"There is a very small, right-wing, very conservative political party in India, and they are the moral police in India and they do this kind of thing quite often," he told Comedy Central's "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" on Thursday.
Gere said he was confident the issue would be sorted out.
"I don't know that anyone has actually gone to jail, it has to go through a process. It goes to a reputable court, and they throw it out," he said on the TV show.
Under Indian law, a person convicted of public obscenity faces up to three months in prison, a fine, or both.
Gere, who left shortly after the kissing incident, is a frequent visitor to India, promoting health issues and the cause of Tibetan exiles. The Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has his headquarters in the northern Indian town of Dharmsala.
On Friday, Gere won support from lawyers and legal experts in India, who slammed the Jaipur court ruling.
"The order is ridiculous. Even if this hugging and kissing was a bit vulgar, it does not amount to obscenity," India's former attorney general Soli Sorabjee told The Associated Press.
Sorabjee said the judge should not have issued an arrest warrant without hearing from Gere and Shetty.
"They are just seeking publicity," he said.
Another senior lawyer called the order "an act of judicial indecency."
"This is only for cheap publicity and the magistrate and lawyer should be restrained," Dushyant Dave told the Times of India newspaper.
The kiss had made headlines, and photographs were splashed across front pages in India, where public displays of affection are largely taboo.
In his statement, Gere appealed to the media to let the controversy die.
"I would hope that the media could now end the circus around this episode and dedicate its positive resources and expertise to the eradication of HIV/AIDS and other preventable diseases," Gere said. "That's what's really important here."
Gere said Shetty was not to blame for the incident.
"I've felt terrible that she should carry a burden that is no fault of hers," he said.
The judge ordered her to appear in his court May 5, saying she did nothing to resist the kiss, which he called "highly sexually erotic."
Shetty, already well known in India, became an international star after her appearance on the British reality show "Celebrity Big Brother."
A fellow contestant, Jade Goody, sparked international headlines by allegedly making racist comments to Shetty. Mobs took to the streets of India to denounce Goody, and Shetty went on to win the competition.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Joss Stone: 'I'm allowed to be me now'

2007-04-26T10:41:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Joss Stone called her new album "Introducing Joss Stone" for a reason -- even though it's her third release.
Four years ago, Stone was a 16-year-old R&B wunderkind. But now she's embarked on a new direction, one she says is truer to herself. She's even managing herself now -- having gone through "four managers in the last five years," she says.
Stone talked with CNN about her career, her concerns and even Britney Spears. This is an edited version of the interview.
Q: I was surprised to find out that, before you made this record, you were wondering whether you wanted to continue in the music business.
JOSS STONE: I don't know. It really didn't rub me the right way. It kind of irritated me. So I was like, OK guys, either you let me do what I need to do by myself or I need to get find another job because it wasn't making me happy.
Q: What was it you wanted?
STONE: I wanted people not to look at me as a little girl, but I was a little girl so how could I ask the world not to? ...
So I have to prove myself, I guess. I guess this year I'm going to find out if I'm good enough or not. If I'm not, I don't care. I'll do something else, it's not a biggie.
Q: But you've taken a totally different direction this time.
STONE: Yeah man, this is my direction.
Q: And you've gone toward a more urban sound.
STONE: If you want to call it that. ... It's a growing thing. ... I'm allowed to be me now, which is a first, and I think it's really cool.
Q: Some fans are really intrigued by the change and what is she going to do next, and then there are other fans who are appalled.
STONE: So really you can't please everyone can you? ...
I'm 19, I'm a girl, I'm very young, I like all sorts of different things, I like all sorts of different styles of music, I like all sorts of different styles of clothes, I like all sorts of different colors of hair. I like many different things you know so I'm probably going to experiment, and if I didn't I'd be a little bit strange and boring and stiff and kind of dead, and I'm very not that.
Q: You're a lot younger than other girls in the business who have been successful, but you look at Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera and how they all had growing pains. Britney still can't figure out who she is and she's doing things to draw attention to herself in perhaps the wrong ways.
STONE: Well, maybe she's not. Maybe she's just living her life but people just won't stop looking at her. Maybe people should leave her alone. ... You took a picture of me on a bad day and it would be the same thing.
Q: Yeah, but you'd be wearing underwear.
STONE: Yeah, right. [But] some people don't like to wear underwear. Each to their own. ...
We shouldn't be mad at Britney Spears because she didn't wear underwear. That's her choice. She wasn't hurting anybody. That was her. She decided not to wear underwear. Maybe she wanted a little breeze. That's her decision. But we should be mad at the guy who posted it on the Internet. What an [expletive], what a [expletive] [expletive]. That's a really mean, nasty, malicious, terrible thing to do to somebody.
Q: Do people try to do that to you?
STONE: If anybody shoved a camera up my skirt I'd knock them on their ass in about five seconds.
Q: You['ve] said that you're an insecure person. Where do your insecurities come from?
STONE: I think everybody's insecure. I think people that claim not to be are lying. ... Especially young women.
Q: What do you get insecure about?
STONE: I get insecure because the people I listen to vocally I think they're stunning and amazing and I personally don't think that I am that. There's always insecurities about my job and whether I'm doing it right. And there's also the average everyday girl thing.
You know if I wasn't insecure I wouldn't wear makeup and I wouldn't do my hair, and I wouldn't wear clothes. If the human race was not insecure we'd be walking around buck naked because we wouldn't give a [expletive]. ... We are all insecure and it's silly to say that we're not.
Q: Do you think it takes hardships and ups and downs to make a career and get respect?
STONE: Well, some people find it really difficult to believe that a young person can be as emotional as I am because they want to know the ins and outs of your life in order to believe you. And I'm like, well, that's my business. I don't think that I need to be smacked in the face 50 times in order to sing about an [expletive]. But I think you need to have emotions. ...
There's no age limit on emotions, there's no age limit on being soulful, or feeling something or expressing how you feel. ... A lot of people find it difficult to believe you but that's really not my problem. If you don't believe me, don't believe me. All I can do is tell you.

O'Donnell leaving 'The View'

2007-04-25T10:41:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK (AP) -- Rosie O'Donnell's stormy tenure on "The View" will be a short one. The opinionated host was unable to agree on a contract with ABC, and she'll leave the show in June.
O'Donnell said on the show Wednesday that she wanted to stay for one more year, and ABC wanted three. So she decided to leave, although she said she will appear occasionally next season for things like a planned one-hour special on autism.
"It just didn't work," she said, "and that's show biz. But it's not sad because I loved it here and I love you guys and I'm not going away." (Watch the impact of O'Donnell's departure )
O'Donnell has helped raise the ratings for the daytime chat show invented by Barbara Walters. But her outspokenness has caused almost constant controversy, including a nasty name-calling feud with Donald Trump that placed Walters squarely in the middle.
"I induced Rosie to come back to television on 'The View' even for just one year," Walters said before "The View" aired. "She has given the program new vigor, new excitement and wonderful hours of television. I can only be grateful to her for this year."
"We have had, to say the least, an interesting year," Walters added on the program.
Walters said she had nothing to do with the decision, reached after talks between representatives for ABC Daytime and O'Donnell.
"This is not my doing or my choice," she said.
Walters was frequently left to clean up the damage after O'Donnell. She did it most recently Monday, when O'Donnell was criticized for using bad language and attacking Rupert Murdoch from the dais of the annual New York Women in Communication awards luncheon.
"I would like to point out that Rosie's view is not always mine," Walters said. "I would like to say for the record that I am very fond of Rupert Murdoch."
In the Trump imbroglio, O'Donnell was reportedly mad that Walters did not come more swiftly to her defense, while Trump said Walters told him she didn't want O'Donnell on the show -- a claim Walters denied.
Trump quickly went on Fox News Channel Wednesday to claim that O'Donnell was fired by ABC because of remarks made at the Women in Communications luncheon. (He'll be on CNN Headline News' "Showbiz Tonight" Wednesday night.)
"Barbara's the happiest person in the world that Rosie's been fired," Trump said.
Cindi Berger, spokeswoman for both O'Donnell and Walters, denied Trump's claim, wondering how he would know what had happened in contract talks between O'Donnell and ABC.
"She wasn't going to commit to anything for three years and they would not commit to her for one more," Berger said. Locking in O'Donnell to a three-year deal could protect ABC from year-to-year increases if the ratings continue to be good for the show.
Despite controversy -- or maybe because of it -- O'Donnell was good business for ABC, owned by the Walt Disney Co. Ratings for "The View" during February sweeps were up 15 percent in key women demographics over the same time in 2006.
Bill Carroll, an expert in the syndication market for Katz Television, said he'd be surprised if ABC didn't try hard to keep O'Donnell, given the attention she brought to the long-running show.
The timing of the announcement doesn't particularly suit O'Donnell if she wants to remain in daytime television. She wouldn't be able to introduce a new program to the syndication market until September 2008, he said. But the company that produced O'Donnell's long-running daytime show has expressed interest in having her back, he said.
O'Donnell has discussed acting on the FX show, "Nip/Tuck." But she has not decided what she wants to do in TV in the future, Berger said.
O'Donnell made headlines repeatedly for comments on "The View," and for testy exchanges with her more conservative partner, Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
She criticized "American Idol" in January for airing humiliating auditions. "Isn't that what America thinks of entertainment? To make fun of someone's physical appearance. And when they leave the room, laugh hysterically at them. Three millionaires, one probably intoxicated."
She accused fellow ABC daytime host Kelly Ripa of making a homophobic remark, said "radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America" and has been critical of President Bush.
Statements by public figures are being watched more closely in the post-Don Imus era. The lobbying group Focus on the Family said it was preparing to contact advertisers on "The View" as part of a campaign against O'Donnell. The group is angry at O'Donnell for comments they feel were insulting to Catholics.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

New Avril Lavigne: Married, glamorous, 'wiser'

2007-04-24T19:34:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK (AP) -- Avril Lavigne has gone through a few changes since she released her last CD three years ago.
The 21-year-old Lavigne is now married (to fellow Canadian rocker Deryck Whibley of Sum 41). She's also a certified actress, having made her film debut in last year's flicks "Fast Food Nation" and the animated "Over the Hedge." And she's gone glam, ditching her tomboy duds for gowns and heels in high-profile modeling gigs.
But anyone concerned that the pop-punk princess had lost her edge will find reassurance in the title of her latest album: "The Best Damn Thing." And there's more attitude throughout the CD -- the first single, "Girlfriend," is about taking someone else's guy.
It was Lavigne's edgy, tough-girl persona (along with the rock ditties she co-wrote) that helped to set her apart from the rest of pop's divas when she made her debut at 16 with her first album, 2002's "Let Go." It sold millions, as did her follow-up, 2004's "Under My Skin."
Now, with her third disc, Lavigne is picking up where she left off.
Q: It's been awhile since your last album. Why the break?
AVRIL LAVIGNE: ... I just wanted to kind of take a break and live my life. I worked on a couple of movies, got married, and then I went into the studio and because I write my songs it takes much longer for me to work on my album. I took my time with the album. I didn't want to rush it, I wanted to make sure it was really good ... I want to make sure I have time for myself to enjoy myself to enjoy life, because I've worked so much in my life.
Q: How has getting married changed you?
LAVIGNE: I don't feel like marriage has really changed me that much; just personally, in my personal life, I'm really happy.
Q: You're new album is very upbeat -- does that reflect your mood?
LAVIGNE: Well, a lot of my inspiration for this record came from tour(ing), and me realizing what songs I like to play live the most ... I had this vision for this record, my vision was to make a fun record all the way tough, energetic, poppy and catchy but still a rock record, so that's what I did. So I went in the studio and had a really good time, and the songs are so me, and it's fun, it's like a party CD ... it's like a summer CD, that's what it's like to me.
Q: Your husband worked with you on two songs -- had you two always planned to work together?
LAVIGNE: No, I didn't plan on working with Deryck. I had written two songs with my friend Evan and they are kind of in the pop-rock vein and I thought he'd be perfect for it. He was producing his record, so he was already in the studio. I'm glad he got to be a part of it. We have very similar styles and we like a lot of the same music, and he's really good.
Q: You've started acting -- is that something you'd always wanted to do?
LAVIGNE: (I) basically started acting when I was younger. I was in the school plays, singing and stuff and then I got a record deal. The singing thing worked out. I just wanted to try it again and be creative in any way I can. I am looking forward to getting a great movie and working on a good project. I believe in myself and I know that I can, so I want to. It is a matter of me finding the right project, something that really speaks to me instead of just jumping into something. I make sure I am selective and careful with what I do. I have to be extra careful because I'm going to be really judged.
Q: You've actually done high-fashion modeling spreads -- a big change from your tomboy image. How are you evolving fashion-wise?
LAVIGNE: As I've gotten older, I appreciate fashion a bit more and experiment a bit more. Now I am at the age where I will wear a dress. Before I didn't want to. I'm a casual dresser but I love clothes, shoes, everything. I have done a few fashion spreads in Harper's Bazaar, W, and all that stuff just to try it out, but I don't actually dress like that. Once in a while I'll put on a dress maybe if I am going to a premiere or something.
Q: People kind of have an image of you as a very spunky, in-your-face kind of girl. Have you mellowed at all?
LAVIGNE: I've changed a ton, I've grown up, I'm wiser. I'm still the same girl. I'm just an older version. I've always been honest and I've always totally been me. Been outspoken. I'm not a butt kisser. I'm true to myself and I think that is what a lot of the fans liked about me.
Q: You say you plan to start a clothing line -- so many stars have one. Why did you decide to do one now?
LAVIGNE: Now I love clothes and I feel like I have all these really cool ideas. It's something creative to do. It would totally be one of those things where I'm coming up with all the ideas. It would be how I dress. ... My whole thing is I love black, I love Dickies, I like Converse, I will wear heels once in a while, anything with a skull ... anything with kind of a rock 'n' roll vibe is what I wear.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

What does 'The Bachelor' say about women?

2007-04-23T19:41:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK (AP) -- "The Bachelor" reality franchise hit the jackpot this season with Andy Baldwin -- a real-life Dr. McDreamy.
Baldwin -- a 30-year-old doctor, Navy lieutenant, humanitarian and triathlete -- is the perfect guy with perfect teeth, and a houseful of wide-eyed, marriage-minded women competing to be his one and only.
But it's not Baldwin or his predecessors who capture the show's overwhelmingly female audience. Rather, it's the catfights, blatant scheming, tears and rejection. Those irresistible dramatic elements have managed to keep the series afloat, observers say, despite declining ratings, an embarrassing track record of failed romances and the indisputably sexist premise.
"This is voyeuristic viewing," said TV historian Tim Brooks. "You can just sort of sit and watch, 'Oh, I don't like her' and 'Boy, I hope she gets hers' and that kind of thing. And root for your favorites, too."
The bachelor, Brooks said, is "just there to give them something to root about."
This season's batch of "ladies" are displaying not-so-subtle signs of cattiness and ambition as they strut their stuff, size each other up and eyeball Baldwin like a piece of all-American man-meat. They say things like, "I'm here to play the game. I plan on playing the game hard," and "I plan on getting rose after rose, until I get a ring on the finger."
The best line: "Andy is amazing. I can't get over his teeth."
One desperado serenaded Baldwin with the national anthem. Another had a stress-induced breakdown, telling the cameras "it would be relieving not to get a rose."
True to form, a villainess has emerged: Stephanie T., an organ donor coordinator from South Carolina, who was got the first one-on-one date with Baldwin. Of course, she rubbed that victory in her competitors' faces.
All that drama makes Sarah Bunting, co-founder of the Web site Television Without Pity, say "ugh."
Viewers aren't "altruistically interested in seeing whether a good match is made," Bunting argued. "They just want to watch these women embarrass themselves because, evidently, your only self-worth in the culture according to this show is if you're on television and you have a man."
But that's its twisted appeal.
"Girls crying is still the backbone of the show," said Mike Fleiss, who produces the franchise. "You know, because I think women like to see how other girls handle the heartbreak of being rejected, because most women have been rejected, most men have been rejected."
"This season," he teased, "we've got some girls who just totally flip out. We've never had so many tears."
'They're just having fun'
"The Bachelor" was the first of the "rose ceremony shows," spinning off "The Bachelorette" and inspiring copycats including "Average Joe" and "Flavor of Love." Despite a slip in ratings over the years -- it drew 9 million viewers last week to rank No. 30 -- the franchise has survived the explosion of dating shows and proves an inexpensive, reliable moneymaker for ABC, Brooks said.
To get those ratings, the show milks an unrealistic, retrograde version of romance, often at the expense of some strong personalities who signed on for sincere reasons and are instead served up as water cooler fodder. Then again, the 25 potential paramours must know what they're getting into when they step out of that stretch limo to greet the (supposed) man of their dreams.
"This show has been on so many times," said Jen Schefft, who was chosen by her ex-fiance, millionaire Andrew Firestone. "Do you not know what's going to happen if you act like this? I would hope that people get a little smarter. So I guess if they don't ... they probably know exactly what they're doing and they're just having fun."
They must be aware, too, that reality relationships are far from guaranteed. Only two of the previous nine contestants on "The Bachelor" -- Byron Velvick and Charlie O'Connell -- ended up with the women they chose on the series, which debuted in 2002.
(Fleiss says that on the current show, which was pre-taped, Baldwin has found The One and "really loves her.")
Schefft, a public relations exec in Chicago and author of the self-help book "Better Single Than Sorry," said viewers see the show as "comfort food" and no longer get "invested in the sense that if the couples break up, they're so disappointed."
She was the target of outrage after turning down two marriage proposals on the third season of "The Bachelorette." After her non-decision, Elisabeth Hasselbeck of "The View" went so far as to predict she'd be doomed to remain -- horrors! -- alone forever.
"If one of the guys didn't pick a girl, you'd say he was a jerk," Schefft said. Women, on the other hand, face more scrutiny because they're "seen as these people who want to get married and will get married -- and will find a guy and make it work."
Though liberating and mature, Schefft's refusal to provide a storybook ending made for unsatisfying TV. After all, it might be tough to identify with a woman rejecting two handsome suitors. "The Bachelor," though, captivates its audience by letting loose a camera-friendly bunch of beauties and bad eggs. They (mis)behave like surreal sorority sisters, swooning over the president of the best frat on campus.
In turn, they represent anxieties women have about themselves: Am I pretty or engaging enough? What does she have that I don't? Will I ever settle down?
Those questions are amplified by the message -- among unattached and partnered friends, around the family dinner table, in pop culture -- that a girl can't be happy unless she's on the arm of a special someone. Hurry up, that clock is ticking.
In the warped world of "The Bachelor," that pressure is real.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Dueling murder films top box office

2007-04-22T19:52:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- The face of Hannibal Lecter was no match for Shia LaBeouf in a box-office battle of murder thrillers.
DreamWorks and Paramount's "Disturbia," starring LaBeouf as a teen who suspects a neighbor of murder, took in $13.5 million to hold the top weekend movie spot for a second straight weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday.
New Line Cinema's "Fracture" starring Anthony Hopkins -- who played serial killer Lecter in three films -- debuted at No. 2 with $11.2 million. Hopkins plays a sly defendant accused of killing his unfaithful wife, with Ryan Gosling co-starring as the prosecutor. (Review)
DreamWorks and Paramount's figure-skating comedy "Blades of Glory," starring Will Ferrell and Jon Heder, was No. 3 with $7.8 million in its fourth weekend to cross the $100 million mark.
Sony Screen Gems' horror flick "Vacancy," starring Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson as a couple marked for grisly death at a sleazy motel, led a rush of other new wide releases, opening at No. 4 with $7.6 million. (No-frills motel-hell slasher film -- with a bit of soul)
The buddy-cop comedy "Hot Fuzz," released by Focus Features' Rogue Pictures unit, had a strong start in narrower release, premiering at No. 6 with $5.8 million in 825 theaters, about a third the number of cinemas where "Fracture" and "Vacancy" played.
"Hot Fuzz" comes from the "Shaun of the Dead" team of director Edgar Wright and his co-writer and star Simon Pegg, who plays a London super-cop exiled to a sleepy British town, where he encounters a series of grisly deaths.
The Warner Bros. drama "In the Land of Women" opened at a weak No. 8 with $4.9 million. The movie stars Adam Brody as a heartbroken writer who moves in with his grandmother and forges a relationship with a neighbor (Meg Ryan) and her teenage daughter.
After a solid start this year, Hollywood's overall revenues were down for a second straight weekend. The top 12 movies took in $74 million, off 26 percent compared to the same weekend last year, when "Silent Hill" opened at No. 1 with $20.2 million.
"This is like an onslaught of films trying to get into the marketplace before the big summer rush," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. "People are just holding their breath waiting for summer to start, and while they're holding their breath, they didn't go to the movies in big numbers."
However, attendance is up 2.4 percent from last year, and studio executives predict this could be a record summer for modern Hollywood with major sequels including "Spider-Man 3," "Shrek the Third" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End."
"Disturbia" raised its 10-day total to $40.7 million, already taking in roughly double what it cost to make the movie.
The film has established the 20-year-old LaBeouf, whose big break came as the star of the Disney Channel series "Even Stevens," as a bankable leading man.
"He has this appeal which I think works for the girls obviously, who are big suspense fans, and guys like him, too, so that's a double plus," said DreamWorks spokesman Marvin Levy.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Victoria's Secret picks sexiest entertainers

2007-04-21T18:50:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK (AP) -- Another day, another list. But what the heck, this one is a "What is Sexy?" rundown from Victoria's Secret.
"SexyBack" singer Justin Timberlake is sexiest male musician; Jessica Alba, who starred in "Sin City," is sexiest actress; and David Beckham, who has three sons with his wife, Victoria, is sexiest dad.
The list of sexy entertainers and athletes was announced Thursday. It was compiled by a team of Victoria's Secret executives, designers and supermodel spokeswomen, including Heidi Klum and Karolina Kurkova. Klum and Kurkova were to host a party in Las Vegas on Thursday to celebrate the list-makers.
"I still think my husband (Seal) is the sexiest dad for our children, but (that's) beside the point," Klum, 33, told The Associated Press.
Matthew McConaughey was honored for his "beach body."
"You know, he has his shirt off a lot lately," said Klum, host of Bravo's "Project Runway."
Other sexy celebs: Eric Dane (actor), Carrie Underwood (female musician), speed racer Danica Patrick (female athlete), Yankee Derek Jeter (male athlete), Kate Hudson (mom), and Jay-Z and Beyonce (couple).
Sienna Miller won props for her trendsetting style, Josh Duhamel for his smile and Adrian Grenier for his eyes. Cameron Diaz has the sexiest legs, while Jennifer Hudson was singled out in the lips category.
The ABC medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" -- surprise, surprise -- has the sexiest cast.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Review: 'Fracture' smoothly entertaining

2007-04-20T09:50:00.000-07:00

(CNN) -- "Does it bother you that I call you 'Willy'?" Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins) inquires of prosecuting attorney Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling). "Very well then: Willy ..." Hopkins teases out every ounce of absurdity he can find in the name. A boy's name, surely, not a name for a high-powered attorney?
The two men don't actually pull down their trousers and compare sizes, but the subtext is there. Crawford is a brilliant engineer, wealthy, drives a sports car -- fast. But he's also a cuckold who would rather shoot his wife in the head than let her walk out on him. He disposes of the evidence, then casually hands the gun over to the cops and confesses to the crime. Opting to defend himself in court, he enters a plea of "not guilty."
Talk about mixed messages.
Beachum suspects the defendant must be crazy. Then again, he's so fixated on an imminent move into the corporate sector he fails to notice his last, apparently open-and-shut case is booby-trapped.
The prosecution has the confession, and a gun ... but it's not the gun. Before he knows it, Beachum's airtight prosecution is unraveling right there in open court. It's embarrassing, and worse, it could cost him that job. Crawford has set the scene, and he's evidently sized our Willy as the patsy.
"Fracture" -- scripted by Glenn Gers and Daniel Pyne with a good deal more polish than spit -- is one of those courtroom dramas where twists multiply like worms. Cut one up, you have two more on your hands.
"Look close enough, you'll find everyone has a weak spot," Crawford is solicitous enough to inform his adversary.
Actually, you don't have to look all that close to find the flaws in Crawford's elaborate but ludicrously risky "perfect murder." And anyone who has had any dealings with the judicial system (or watched TV) may also find it hard to swallow a homicide trial scheduled within a day or two of the crime (thus allowing Beachum to take the case just a week before he jumps ship for the big bucks).
And then it seems to take an age for Gosling's supposedly hotshot lawyer to wise up to one transparent but critical plant -- though it does score bonus points for Freudian symbolism.
Normally these defects might weigh heavily against this kind of movie. But in "Fracture's" case, it's not a big deal. Director Gregory Hoblit ("Primal Fear") allows that the engineering may be rigged, but it's only a game, after all -- and quite an entertaining one.
He fashions what is essentially a male ego contest: the killer is practically purring, he's so sure he's the smartest guy in the room, and the lawyer, Willy, is desperately trying to prove he's as good as he thinks he is -- despite all evidence to the contrary.
Cast Hopkins as a criminal mastermind, there's bound to be a whiff of Hannibal Lecter about. But instead of Lecter's aloof, cerebral stillness, Hopkins affects a jocular, blokey demeanor for Crawford.
Hopkins is all smirks and winks and outrageous provocations. "I've got a good dick," he murmurs to the Judge (Fiona Shaw), in reference to the private eye who has been assigned to him.
Perhaps it was acting against the live wire Ryan Gosling ("Half Nelson") that put him in such a playful mood. Their scenes together ricochet back and forth like verbal ping-pong. Beachum is an overachiever from the wrong side of the tracks (shades of Clarice Starling), constantly on the make: "I didn't work this hard to stay where I belong," he informs his boss, the D.A. (David Strathairn).
Popping on jellybeans and coffee, equipped with a lucky horseshoe ring, he's hungry and confident, but watch how his cocksure arrogance collapses along with his career prospects. What's interesting about the picture is how Beachum reacts to this predicament. His pride may be his Achilles' heel, or might still prove his saving grace.
A smart and snappy thriller that makes light work of its ethical dilemmas, "Fracture" is a little too neat and tidy to stick in the mind for long, but the Hopkins-Gosling pairing is choice, and neither comes up short.

Review: 'New' Tolkien splendidly rewarding

2007-04-17T10:56:00.000-07:00

(AP) -- Six thousand years before the Fellowship of the Ring, long before anyone had even seen a Hobbit, the elves and men of Middle-earth quaked at the power of the dark lord Morgoth.
Hunted by easterlings and orcs, they fled to the fastness of Nargothrond and to the deep forests of Brethil and Doriath. Among them, a hero emerged. Strong and courageous he was, but foolhardy and impetuous. His name was Turin, son of Hurin.
His story, released today by Houghton Mifflin, is a publishing event: It is the first new book by the creator of "The Lord of the Rings" in 30 years. The publisher calls it the culmination of an effort to bring to the public the vast body of work J.R.R. Tolkien had left unpublished, and largely unfinished, when he died in 1973.
Tolkien began writing "The Children of Hurin" 99 years ago, abandoning it and taking it up again repeatedly throughout his life. Versions of the tale already have appeared in "The Silmarillion," "Unfinished Tales" and as narrative poems or prose sections of the "History of Middle-earth" series.
But they were truncated and contradictory. Outside of Tolkien scholars and Middle-earth fanatics, few read them.
These works were, after all, largely unreadable -- dense, hard to follow histories and legends of Tolkien's vast, imaginary world, crammed with complicated genealogies, unfamiliar geography and hard-to-pronounce names. Readers who took up such books hoping for another Rings saga or charming yarn such as "The Hobbit" abandoned them after a few pages.
"The Children of Hurin" is the book for which these readers have been longing.
It is the fruit of 30 years labor by Christopher Tolkien, the author's son, who has devoted much of his life to editing and publishing the work his father left behind. By meticulously combining and editing the many published and unpublished versions of the tale, he has produced at last a coherent, vivid and readable narrative.
Houghton-Mifflin has treated the work well, hiring Alan Lee, who won an Academy Award for art direction for "The Lord of The Rings: The Return of the King," to create stunning color illustrations.
The story unfolds in a region far to the west of where Frodo and Samwise would later roam, in a land destined to be swallowed by the sea in the cataclysm that would end the first age of Middle-earth. But even then, it was an ancient land, filled with legends and half-remembered histories.
As the tale begins, Morgoth has destroyed a vast army of elves and men and taken one of its leaders, Hurin, prisoner. The dark lord tries to bend Hurin to his will, but the great man defies him. So Morgoth pronounces a curse on Hurin's children, Turin and his sister Nienor.
The first chapter resembles "The Silmarillion," dense and confusing enough to discourage casual readers. But stick with it and the story soon becomes readable and engaging.
Don't expect an uplifting ending like the one to "The Lord of the Rings," however. This is a gloomy tale -- Hurin's children doomed to failure by Turin's hubris and, of course, the curse.
The story is told in the archaic style to which Tolkien fans are accustomed, from a man who admired old Anglo-Saxon and Norse sagas. A sample:
"In this way, before the summer had passed, the following of Turin had swelled to a great force, and the power of Angband was thrown back. Word of this came even to Nargothrond, and many there grew restless."
The story is short by the standards of "The Lord of the Ring," covering just 259 pages, the rest of the book consisting of an introduction and appendix in which Christopher Tolkien explains how he went about his work. The details are unlikely to be of interest to the casual reader, but the bottom line is this:
Christopher Tolkien says that in reconciling the various versions of his father's story, he added no new material, save for an occasional transition. The words, he says, are virtually all his father's.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

McCarthy's 'Road' wins Pulitzer

2007-04-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK (AP) -- Cormac McCarthy, whose novel "The Road" was recently chosen by Oprah Winfrey for her book club, has added another honor: "The Road" won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction Monday.
The Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction was awarded Monday to Lawrence Wright for his book, "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11," a penetrating analysis of how Islamic fundamentalism has reshaped the modern world.
Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff won the Pulitzer Prize for history for "The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation." The book traces how the civil rights struggle was covered by the press, breaking down prejudices within journalism and as well as in American society.
Debby Applegate won for biography for "The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher," the 19th-century abolitionist and preacher.
"It took me about 20 years to write this book from the time I stumbled upon Beecher's work and thought I'd write a college seminar paper on him," said Applegate, 39, who studied at Amherst College as an undergraduate.
David Lindsay-Abaire won the drama prize for "Rabbit Hole," about a wealthy, suburban couple trying to come to terms with the death of their young son, Danny, accidentally killed when he runs into the street and is struck by a car.
Jazz artist Ornette Coleman won for music for "Sound Grammar." It's only the second Pulitzer won by a jazz composer. Wynton Marsalis won the music prize in 1997 for "Blood on the Fields."
Coleman said his cousin notified him that he had won the honor. "I didn't believe him," Coleman told The Associated Press. "I'm grateful to know that America is really a fantastic country."
Natasha Trethewey won for poetry for "Native Guard."
Special citations were given to science fiction icon Ray Bradbury and famed jazz saxaphonist John Coltrane.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Review: 'Stranger' far from 'Perfect'

2007-04-16T00:49:00.000-07:00

(CNN) -- Back when Kirk Douglas and Spencer Tracy were on the job you could spot a newshound by his rolled-up sleeves, the way he wore his fedora and his two-fingered typing style (with a smoke and a flask nearby).
Fashions change. As tough investigative reporter Rowena Price in "Perfect Stranger," Halle Berry sports lip gloss and a "newsboy" flat cap. She looks like a million dollars, but doesn't exactly scream Seymour Hersh.
Even when she's working undercover as a temp, her wardrobe remains firmly in the upper tax bracket. In fact the only detail that truly says "journalist" here is Ro's pathetic dependence on tech support, in the fidgety form of devoted computer geek Miles (Giovanni Ribisi).
Ribisi seizes on this rather rote sidekick role and basically jumps up and down screaming "Look at me!" (metaphorically, obviously). Well, if you were a scrawny supporting actor playing all his scenes off Halle Berry, you might do the same.
Still, looks can be deceiving -- that's one less-than-original observation director James Foley plants early on as Rowena exposes a hypocritical "family values" senator with a handsome young skeleton in his closet.
The publisher kills that story, but our ace reporter has a more personal motive when it comes to incriminating Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis, exuding his customary wry detachment), the most powerful advertising man in New York. He's used and abused Ro's childhood friend Grace (Nicky Aycox), who is pulled out of the East River only days after threatening to blackmail her ex-lover.
The cause of death points right to Hill. But before she goes to the cops, Ro needs to get up close with the adman, online and in person, with a view to catching Harrison's constantly roving eye. And while she's taking care of business, the rest of us might ponder why we're treated to traumatic flashbacks to Rowena's childhood ... and what Miles is up to ... and, oh, what about Mrs. Hill?
There's no such thing as safe sex in an erotic thriller. You'll recall this genre climaxed in the early '90s with "Basic Instinct" and AIDS at the back of everyone's mind, but became more or less redundant as the connection between illicit affairs and sudden death came to seem more than a little hysterical.
"Perfect Stranger" resurrects most of the cynical old tropes -- adulterous yuppies, slippery plotting and kinky accessories -- then rewires them with the addition of chat rooms, text messages and spyware. See, the trouble with virtual blind dates is that you can't be sure who's getting off on you -- or why.
But for all its perfunctory stabs at the cutting edge, the movie's cyber-angst seems a decade out of date. And filmmakers still haven't figured out how to make instant messaging visually interesting. The best Foley can come up with is have Rowena's "chat-room virgin" (in 2007?) dutifully recount her semi-pornographic e-mails aloud in case anyone in the audience forgot their reading glasses.
When she's not stooping to aural sex Berry has one or two good moments staring down angry men who may mean her harm. You can just about understand why the Academy Award winner would sign up for such a hackneyed, lackluster scenario: sexy, smart, independent female leads don't exactly grow on trees (just ask Hilary Swank, currently slumming it in "The Reaping").
The truth is, though, this story might have worked better told from a different perspective.
As it stands, the film's a cheat. Word has it they shot three different endings with three different denouements. Such preparation was unnecessary. We all know what happens to cheaters.
This one's DOA.

A sneak peek at the new 'Shrek'

2007-04-11T19:38:00.000-07:00

REDWOOD CITY, California (AP) -- Time to catch up with your ogre friend Shrek, his greenish bride, Fiona, and their two men Friday, the yammering Donkey and the overreaching Puss in Boots.
The filmmakers behind "Shrek the Third" offered a sneak peek at their PDI-DreamWorks animation complex near San Francisco. From the 20 minutes of footage they showed, the film looks likely to meet expectations as one of summer's hottest tickets.
Key voice stars Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz and Antonio Banderas return, with Justin Timberlake headlining the newcomers as geeky teenager Artie.
"You feel you've got a lot to live up to, man," Timberlake said about being the new kid on the block in the Shrek world. "Every character is so good. When you come into 'Shrek,' you definitely feel you have a lot to prove."
The gang is joined by a gargantuan cast as the filmmakers take advantage of advances in computer animation to load up on supporting players, among them magician Merlin, Captain Hook, wicked witches, ugly stepsisters and four of the fairy-tale world's fairest princesses.
Here's a rundown of the players and their exploits for the film that hits theaters May 18.
What's happening
Just when newlyweds Shrek and Fiona thought they could head home to peace and quiet in the swamp, Fiona's dad, the frog King Harold, croaks.
On his deathbed, he asks son-in-law Shrek to take over the throne of Far Far Away, a job the ogre dreads. Shrek's only option: track down Fiona's distant cousin Artie and groom him to become king.
So Shrek and sidekicks Donkey and Puss sail away to find Artie, the future King Arthur. Just as they leave, Fiona drops another bomb on her anti-social, kid-hating husband: There's a little ogre on the way.
Fiona stays behind at the palace, where Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Rapunzel throw her a baby shower. The gifts include one of the seven dwarfs as a live-in baby sitter ("Don't worry," Snow White tells Fiona. "I have six more at home.").
Palace life is interrupted by an invasion of fairy-tale villains, led by Prince Charming, whose happy-ever-after was dashed by Shrek in the first two films. The prince takes over the realm, forcing Fiona to teach her posse of pampered princesses to stand up for themselves rather than wait for a man to rescue them.
"A big part of this film is just the theme of taking responsibility, be it fatherhood or kingship or whatever," said Nick Walker, head of layout on the animation team for "Shrek the Third."
Who's back
The whole gang returns, led by the key foursome of Shrek (Myers), Donkey (Murphy), Fiona (Diaz) and Puss in Boots (Banderas).
Shrek's still barking at everyone in his Scottish brogue, though married life brings out his softer side more and more.
"What I love about the Scottish people, which is part of my heritage, is they go from, 'I love you, come here,' to 'You get out of my house!' " Myers said. "Scottish people are hilarious when they're angry. They shift gears so fast."
Also back: Fiona's mom, Queen Lillian (Julie Andrews, who in a dizzy moment hums "My Favorite Things," a tune she sang in "The Sound of Music"); King Harold (John Cleese); villainous Prince Charming (Rupert Everett); and ugly stepsister Doris (Larry King).
It wouldn't be a "Shrek" movie without all those goofy bit players, including the three little pigs, Pinocchio and the Gingerbread Man. The minor characters were so much fun, the filmmakers said they had to reign them in or they might have taken over.
"Gingey tries to steal the show," said "Shrek the Third" co-director Raman Hui.
What's new
The main new face is Arthur Pendragon, or Artie (Timberlake), a bumbling teen who's first seen getting his butt kicked by jock Lancelot in a jousting match at his high school.
When Shrek, Donkey and Puss arrive with the news that Artie's in line to become a king, it swells his head after a lifetime spent a rung lower on the social scale than the school dorks who play a medieval variation of Dungeons and Dragons.
"He doesn't know anything but kind of being a loser," Timberlake said. "When he finds out through his blood line that he's heir to the throne, he thinks, I can do this. But when he realizes what type of responsibility it is, his natural instinct is to run away."
Timberlake, whose poster appears as a gag on Fiona's bedroom wall in "Shrek 2," recently split in real life from Diaz, but it was not their personal relationship that led to the "Shrek the Third" gig. The filmmakers rang him up after catching Timberlake on "Saturday Night Live."
"We had seen him on 'SNL' and were blown away by how funny he was," said "Shrek the Third" producer Aron Warner. "He's got a great presence and a great voice and is clearly funny, so he's going to help us make this character what he needed to be."
Shrek, Donkey and Puss also run across magician Merlin (Eric Idle), who used to be a teacher at Artie's school until he had a nervous breakdown.
Other newcomers include the quartet of princesses, haughty Snow White (Amy Poehler); long-haired Rapunzel (Maya Rudolph); obsessive clean freak Cinderella (Amy Sedaris); and narcoleptic Sleeping Beauty (Cheri Oteri).
Regis Philbin joins the voice cast as Mabel, another ugly stepsister, while Captain Hook, seen briefly singing a Tom Waits song in "Shrek 2," advances to a speaking role, with vocals by Ian McShane.
There are hordes of others, from palace flunkies to medieval Valley Girls to a Wicked Witch singing Charlene's sappy 1980s hit "I've Never Been to Me" as a torch song.
It was a juggling act for the filmmakers, with so many new and returning characters competing for screen time. They stuck to one principle to balance it all.
"Shrek is going to drive the story. That is our goal from day one," said Chris Miller, who moves up from head of story on the last movie to make his directing debut on "Shrek the Third."
"When you have all these characters, a lot of them you want to spend a lot of time with. They're interesting. They all have a place in this film. But at the end of the day, it's supporting Shrek's story."
What works
With three more years of refinements to computer animation, what isn't better about "Shrek the Third"?
The 350 people who worked on the film created more realistic fire and water images, developed ways to mimic how light behaves in the real world and even simulated the slightly seasick oscillations of live-action shipboard scenes, where the camera lags just a tick behind the rocking of the waves.
They scrapped the basic computer models of Shrek and other lead characters they had worked with since the first movie and rebuilt them from inside out to take advantage of the subtler anatomy now possible. The filmmakers had to resist the urge to make external improvements so they could remain true to the look of the original film.
"We had a lot of work to try to make the characters look the same. Be better, but look the same," said Lucia Modesto, one of the film's character technical-direction supervisors. "The motor inside Shrek is all brand-new. The outside is almost the same."
Greater variation in hair styles, body types, facial features and clothing allowed the team to bring in far more characters and present huge crowd scenes.
"In the past, we had issues where our hero characters looked great because we spent so much time on them, but the generic characters, the secondaries, didn't look quite so good, to the point where on 'Shrek 1' we tried to stay away from them," said visual-effects supervisor Philippe Gluckman. "Now they all look great."
The advances are a bit daunting to the actors, who jokingly wonder if they could be replaced in live-action films by computer simulations.
"It makes me shake in my pants," Banderas said. "Someday, they may not need actors anymore. That's why I'm going to Broadway, man."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Birkhead named baby's dad; Stern won't fight for custody

2007-04-10T20:37:00.000-07:00

NASSAU, Bahamas (CNN) -- Former boyfriend Larry Birkhead was declared the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby Tuesday, and Howard K. Stern, listed as Dannielynn's father on the birth certificate, said he would not fight for custody.
"My feelings for Dannielynn have not changed," said Stern, who was Smith's lawyer and live-in companion.
"I am not going to fight Larry Birkhead on custody. We're going to do what we can to make sure that the best interests of Dannielynn are carried out. And I'm going to do whatever I can to make sure he gets sole custody," Stern said outside the Bahamian courthouse where the DNA test results were disclosed. (Watch Stern express his disappointment )
When asked when Birkhead would get custody of the 7-month-old girl, who has been living with Stern in Nassau, Stern said he wanted there to be a "gradual transition."
Stern said Birkhead could come to the house any time and spend as much time as he wants with his daughter.
Another hearing is set for Friday to further discuss the custody issue, which involves Stern, Birkhead and Virgie Arthur, Smith's estranged mother who lives in Texas.
Arthur's attorney, John O'Quinn, told "Larry King Live" on Tuesday that Arthur would not seek any sort of guardianship for Dannielynn. Arthur and Birkhead will meet on Thursday, he said, in an attempt to reach an agreement regarding access to Dannielynn.
"Virgie is the grandmother, and we're going to respect that," he said.
Birkhead sits in a good position to take Dannielynn home soon, according to B. J. Bernstein, a defense attorney and CNN legal analyst.
"It's very difficult for grandparents ... to trump the natural, biological parent," Bernstein said.
Arthur said she was happy with the outcome of the results. "All I care about is the safety and well-being of my little granddaughter," she said. (Watch Smith's mom explain what she plans to do next )
Birkhead: I told you so
Birkhead was the first to share the paternity results with the public.
"Everybody, I hate to be the one to tell you this -- but I told you so," he said outside the court as he smiled and threw his hands into the air.
When asked what's next, he said, "I'm going to the toy store."
Crowds applauded in front of the courthouse as Birkhead made the announcement, and Birkhead teared up as he thanked his supporters. (Watch Birkhead be the one to say 'I told you so' )
A DNA test confirmed him as the father with 99.99 percent certainty, said Dr. Michael Baird, who performed the test and revealed the results to a closed session of a Bahamian court.
Baird told CNN's "Larry King Live" that a cheek sample was taken from Dannielynn on March 21 and tested on March 22. The DNA testing was finished March 26, he said, and the results were known to him and some members of his staff but were not made public until he opened the results in the courtroom Tuesday.
The court had ordered DNA testing to determine the father of the child, who has been at the center of a paternity dispute since she was born in a Bahamian hospital in September.
Birkhead, an entertainment reporter and photographer, said shortly after the baby's birth that he accompanied Smith to doctors' appointments until a "minor disagreement" took place while she was pregnant.
In September, Stern said on CNN's "Larry King Live" that he and Smith were confident he was the father, and "based on the timing of when the baby was born, there really is no doubt in either of our minds."
Zsa Zsa Gabor's husband, Frederic von Anhalt, also said he could be the father.
Dannielynn stands to inherit millions of dollars from the estate of Smith's late husband, oil tycoon Howard Marshall II. Until her death, Smith was involved in a legal battle over the inheritance.
The former Playboy Playmate died of an accidental drug overdose February 8.
After a protracted dispute over the burial of Smith's body, Stern and Birkhead began battling in Bahamian courts over the child, and a judge ordered that a swab be taken from the girl for DNA testing.
Stern then asked the Bahamas' Court of Appeal to block release of those test results, arguing that the judge had misinterpreted the law and his order invaded the girl's privacy.
Earlier this month, appellate judges questioned why Stern was raising legal claims after giving consent to the DNA swabbing.
Stern was ordered to pay $10,000 in court costs for the abandoned appeal.

Imus suspended from radio, TV

2007-04-09T19:09:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK -- MSNBC and CBS have decided to suspend Don Imus for two weeks following his reference last week to members of the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos."
MSNBC first announced it would suspend telecasting Imus' radio program for two weeks, beginning April 16.
A short time later, CBS announced it will suspend its broadcast of Imus' radio program for the same two weeks.
Despite apologies from Imus on Friday and Monday, the suspension will start next Monday, MSNBC said in a written statement.
"Don Imus has expressed profound regret and embarrassment and has made a commitment to listen to all of those who have raised legitimate expressions of outrage," it said.
"In addition, his dedication -- in his words -- to change the discourse on his program moving forward, has confirmed for us that this action is appropriate. Our future relationship with Imus is contingent on his ability to live up to his word."
After a career of cranky insults, Imus was fighting for his job after one joke that by his own admission went "way too far."
Imus apologized Monday, both on his show and on a syndicated radio program hosted by the Rev. Al Sharpton, who is among several black leaders demanding his ouster.
Imus could be in real danger if the outcry causes advertisers to shy away from him, said Tom Taylor, editor of the trade publication Inside Radio.
"Everyone is on tenterhooks waiting to see whether it grows and whether the protest gets picked up more broadly," Taylor said.
Imus isn't the most popular radio talk show host -- the trade publication Talkers ranks him the 14th most influential -- but his audience is heavy on the political and media elite that advertisers pay a premium to reach. Authors, journalists and politicians are frequent guests -- and targets for insults.
He has urged critics to recognize that his show is a comedy that spreads insults broadly. Imus or his cast have called Colin Powell a "sniffling weasel," New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson a "fat sissy" and referred to Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado, an American Indian, as "the guy from 'F Troop."' He and his colleagues also called the New York Knicks a group of "chest-thumping pimps."
Imus: We went way too far
On Sharpton's program Monday, Imus said that "our agenda is to be funny and sometimes we go too far. And this time we went way too far."
The Rutgers comment has struck a chord, in part, because it was aimed at a group of young women at the pinnacle of athletic success. It also came in a different public atmosphere following the Michael Richards and Mel Gibson incidents, said Eric Deggans, columnist for the St. Petersburg Times and chairman of the media monitoring committee of the National Association of Black Journalists, which also wants Imus canned.
"This may be the first time where he's done something like this in the YouTube era," Deggans said. Viewers can quickly see clips of Imus' remarks, not allowing him to redefine their context, he said.
On his show Monday, Imus called himself "a good person" who made a bad mistake.
"Here's what I've learned: that you can't make fun of everybody, because some people don't deserve it," he said. "And because the climate on this program has been what it's been for 30 years doesn't mean that it has to be that way for the next five years or whatever because that has to change, and I understand that."
Imus' radio show originates from WFAN in New York City and is syndicated nationally by Westwood One, both of which are managed by CBS. CBS Radio just replaced chief executive Joel Hollander with Dan Mason. With Imus' radio show reaching an estimated 2.5 million people a week, his future could conceivably be decided by CBS chief Leslie Moonves.
CBS has denounced Imus' remarks and said it will monitor his show for content.
The show is simulcast daily on MSNBC, where it reached an estimated 361,000 viewers in the first three months of the year, up 39 percent from last year.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson and about 50 people marched Monday outside Chicago's NBC tower to protest Imus' comments. He said MSNBC should abandon Imus and MSNBC should hire more black pundits.
Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP board of directors, said it is "past time his employers took him off the air."
"As long as an audience is attracted to his bigotry and politicians and pundits tolerate his racism and chauvinism to promote themselves, Don Imus will continue to be a serial apologist for prejudice," Bond said.
Imus was mostly contrite in his appearance with Sharpton, although the activist did not change his opinion that Imus should lose his job. At one point Imus seemed incredulous at Sharpton's suggestion that he might walk away from the incident unscathed.
"Unscathed?" Imus said. "How do you think I'm unscathed by this? Don't you think I'm humiliated?"
Copyright 2007 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

Comedy beats gore on Easter weekend

2007-04-08T18:14:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Movie audiences were more interested in light comedy over Easter weekend than in Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's "Grindhouse," a double-feature ode to bloody exploitation flicks.
Paramount and DreamWorks' figure-skating romp "Blades of Glory" remained the No. 1 movie with $23 million, followed for the second weekend by Disney's animated comedy "Meet the Robinsons" with $17 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
"Grindhouse," a three-hour reinvention of the down-and-dirty B-movie double features Tarantino and Rodriguez grew up watching, debuted at No. 4 with $11.6 million. (Review: Exciting 'Grindhouse' a wild ride)
It finished behind Sony's family comedy "Are We Done Yet?", starring Ice Cube in a sequel to "Are We There Yet?", which opened at No. 3 with $15 million.
Released by the Weinstein Co., "Grindhouse" fell well short of expectations. Box-office forecasters had figured the movie would premiere in the ballpark of Tarantino's two "Kill Bill" movies and Rodriguez's "Sin City," whose opening weekends ranged from $22 million to $29 million. (Watch Mr. Moviephone review this week's top movies )
The weak debut for "Grindhouse" was a blow to the Weinstein Co., formed two years ago by brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein after they departed their old outfit, Disney-owned Miramax.
The "Grindhouse" directors were steady providers for the Weinsteins at Miramax, which released Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" and "Kill Bill" films and Rodriguez's "Spy Kids" movies.
"Grindhouse" presents two full films. Rodriguez's "Planet Terror" features Rose McGowan as a go-go dancer who becomes a zombie fighter with a machine gun for a leg. Tarantino's "Death Proof" stars Kurt Russell as a serial killer who stalks women with his beefed-up car.
"With these two filmmakers' pedigree and the overall cool factor that this film had going for it, you would have figured it would have done a lot more business," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers.
The movie's running time was an impediment, limiting the number of screenings theaters could fit in.
Harvey Weinstein said disappointing returns for "Grindhouse" resulted from the "novelty in America of releasing a double bill and asking an audience to make a three-hour commitment."
"Grindhouse" played to big crowds on the East and West coasts but failed to click with audiences in the Midwest and South, Weinstein said.
With theatrical receipts, overseas sales, television and home-video revenues, "Grindhouse" will turn a profit on its $53 million budget, Weinstein said. The company hoped that word of mouth from those who did see it would sustain it at theaters in coming weeks, he said.
"If you go see it with any audience, walk into any theater, you'll see people screaming and applauding like a rock concert," Weinstein said. "Maybe we didn't educate the audience that it's such an experience."
Movie-goers clearly were in the mood for something lighter. "Blades of Glory," starring Will Ferrell and Jon Heder as skating rivals who team up as the sport's first men's pair, raised its 10-day total to $68.4 million, its receipts dropping a slim 30 percent from opening weekend.
"There's a real hunger out there for something that you can go to and say, 'Hey, let me get away from the terrible things we have to watch and read every day,"' said Marvin Levy, spokesman for DreamWorks, one of the studios behind "Blades of Glory."
"Meet the Robinsons," the animated adventure of a time-traveling orphan boy, also held strongly in its second weekend, raising its 10-day total to $52.2 million.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Review: Exciting 'Grindhouse' a wild ride

2007-04-07T20:10:00.000-07:00

(CNN) -- When filmmakers talk about how great the movies were back in the 1970s, they're usually thinking about "The Godfather," "Chinatown," or "Dog Day Afternoon."
But when Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez wax lyrical about that period, they have something else in mind: Filipino shoot-'em-ups, Italian slasher films, Mexican vigilante movies and Roger Corman girls-behind-bars flicks. This kind of exploitation cheapie would play on the drive-in circuit or in seedy inner-city theaters, promising sleazy thrills and no refunds.
Those days are gone, and "Grindhouse" -- the directors' supercharged attempt to resurrect the illicit B-movie double feature -- will have to play sterile, sanitary multiplexes alongside such respectable mainstream fare as "Wild Hogs," "TMNT" and "300," all of which wear the imprint of exploitation cinema with pride (the biker movie, kung fu picture and gorefest, respectively).
The truth is, the trash movies Tarantino champions have long since gone mainstream, albeit with bigger budgets and watered down for MPAA approval. That goes for "Grindhouse" too, which cost a reported $50 million to produce, and which anyone under the age of 17 can enjoy with an enabling adult in tow.
Still, the dynamic duo do their utmost to transport us back to the good old bad old days: the package includes irresistible faux trailers for Rob Zombie's "Werewolf Women of the SS" and Eli Roth's seasonal slasher movie "Thanksgiving," among others.
In the first feature, Rodriguez's "Planet Terror" -- a campy contribution to the zombie genre -- the director (who shot on digital) has gone to the trouble of defacing his print, adding the scratches, warp and weave you would expect from beaten-up second-run celluloid. (Tarantino very pointedly shot on film, but has a harder time replicating the effect.) At one key point he even cuts to a "Reel Missing" slide, making for one of the best jokes of the film.
Adolescents of all ages will get a kick out of Rose McGowan's voluptuous one-legged go-go dancer, Cherry, stomping around with a submachine gun stuck into her stump. Apparently she can fire at will, without the bother of manually pulling the trigger. (It's that kind of picture.) She's the linchpin in an unlikely band of survivors battling it out with rampaging flesh-eating mutants in a Tex-Mex border town.
"Planet Terror" certainly gives the audience its money's worth. Unlike most genuine exploitation films, which couldn't afford to muster more than a couple of set-pieces amid wooden acting and long, dull expository stretches, "Planet Terror" is so jam-packed with lurid mayhem it scarcely leaves any breathing room. When the cast does get a chance to sit down and talk, the patter is always parody.
It's fun, for sure. But after 80-some minutes of nonstop carnage, cleavage and cool, the riff begins to ring a little hollow.
To say Tarantino's "Death Proof" represents a change of pace is like saying summer is hotter than winter. For 40 minutes four girls sit and gab: in a car, in a bar, and in another bar. Then something really terrible happens and the movie starts over again: four girls in a car.
If Tarantino wanted to concoct one of the more audacious false starts in the movies -- and we can be sure that he did -- he has succeeded in spades. Whether it had to be quite such an arid dry run is another question entirely -- and coming on the bottom half of the bill probably hasn't done "Death Proof" any favors in this regard.
But Tarantino is playing the long game. Yes, the director's distinctive pop talk frequently veers into self-parody, and a couple of wobbly performances (including the second egregious cameo of the night from the man himself) only make things worse.
But all this downtime finally pays off in an old-school car chase that will have you clinging on to whoever's sitting next to you for dear life -- not just because the stunt work is breathtaking (which it is) but because after hanging out with the protagonist, stuntwoman Zoe Bell, we actually care whether or not she breaks her neck. (And kudos to Kurt Russell for his reprisal of a classic B-movie wacko ... with a deliberate nod to "Escape from New York's" Snake Plissken.)
Caring about consequences make all the difference between empty pastiche and what we might call, for old time's sake, "a real movie." Rodriguez never stops with the action, but Tarantino delivers the goods. And so, finally, does "Grindhouse."
"Grindhouse" runs 192 minutes and is rated R. For Entertainment Weekly's take, click here.

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2007-04-06T19:06:00.000-07:00

(CNN) -- They're all gone now.
Big Pussy: Gone. Richie Aprile: Gone. Ralph Cifaretto: Gone.
Gloria, Adriana, Vito, Tony Blundetto: Gone, gone, brutally gone.
But not, in the mixed-up mob-family world of "The Sopranos," forgotten. Like Shakespearean ghosts, the departed haunt the living, a reminder of the thin line between their desperate, shifty lives and a place six feet under -- or 60 feet under water, or buried in the woods, or decapitated and inserted in a bowling bag.
So the survivors smile over the anger and violence that lurks just beneath the surface, and cover it up with pretty suburban estates and snappy clothes and money -- always wads of money -- and try to stay one step ahead of the ghosts.
But death awaits us all, and for "The Sopranos," the moment of reckoning has arrived. The HBO series about a mob boss, his family, his crew and his therapist -- widely hailed as one of the finest shows in television history -- begins its final season of nine episodes Sunday. (HBO, like CNN, is a unit of Time Warner.) (Gallery: A guide to "The Sopranos")
The stars have mixed feelings about the series' end.
"This is really hard. I've never had a job for 10 years before," Edie Falco, who plays Carmela Soprano -- wife of mob boss Tony (James Gandolfini) -- told CNN at the show's New York premiere last week. "It is really not easy." (Watch the stars at the premiere )
'It could have never happened on network'
"The Sopranos" made lots of reputations during its seven-season, nine-year run.
Creator David Chase, a TV veteran who had written for "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" and "The Rockford Files" and produced "Northern Exposure," can now write his own ticket in Hollywood.
Gandolfini, a beefy character actor, became a star -- as have many of his co-stars, some with such unorthodox backgrounds as guitarist (Steve Van Zandt, the longtime Bruce Springsteen sideman who plays Tony's pal Silvio Dante) and ex-con (Tony Sirico, who served time for some stick-ups before turning to acting, and now plays mobster Paulie Walnuts).
And HBO, which had had only mild success with original programming before "The Sopranos," became the go-to place for water-cooler TV series, including "Big Love," "Six Feet Under" and "Sex and the City" (which, although it predated "The Sopranos," caught fire after the mob drama began). (CNNMoney: The buzz on "The Sopranos")
The series was an unusual smash: as intricate as a novel, with flashes of fierce violence and equally uncomfortable humor. The four major broadcast networks all had their shots before Chase took the show to HBO, but all turned it down.
With the scope, the pacing, the language and the darkness of the show, the rejections were for the best, said Sirico.
"It could have never happened on network," he told CNN.
Producer Brad Grey, who shopped "The Sopranos" around, agrees.
"I believed that the net[work]s would be open to taking some risks at that time," he told Vanity Fair. "I was foolish. ... It was basically a waste of time, really bad judgment on my part, because even if they had taken it, it wouldn't have been 'The Sopranos.' "
'It really pushed the envelope'
The show pushed the limits of television -- and HBO's patience. It was expensive from the outset, it was full of unknown performers (probably the best known at its debut was Lorraine Bracco, who plays Dr. Jennifer Melfi, Tony's therapist) and HBO didn't like the name, believing people would think it was about opera.
And nobody was safe in Chase's underworld. Characters died -- and they died suddenly, with the risk of alienating viewers. The actors who played them also walked a tightrope of emotion, knowing they could be whacked at any time.
"I was really, really sad," said Steve Buscemi (Tony Blundetto) at a gathering of performers who played killed-off characters. "That's really just about missing the greatest job I've ever had."
But the show also had many moments of humor -- often directly contrasted with the violence -- and was willing to be as brutally honest in dissecting family relationships as it was in showing a mobster's corrupt world. Some of the show's most dramatic moments have come between Tony and Carmela, arguing in their kitchen.
"It really pushed the envelope. I think people were expecting it to be just a mob show, but it's really not," Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who plays Soprano daughter Meadow, told CNN. "David uses it as a vehicle to express a lot of his opinions on social issues and family issues and political issues. ... I think people were afraid to do that for awhile. 'Sopranos' sort of broke the mold with that."
Naturally, the show's performers -- adhering to the mob code of omerta -- have been tight-lipped as to what's in store for the final run.
"Everything you were waiting for, you're gonna see. Everything you've been waiting to feel, you're gonna feel. Trust me. Trust me," was all Sirico would tell CNN.
The series may have peaked a few years ago; ratings, which began strongly and have stayed high for HBO, topped out at 11 million viewers per episode in the fourth season; last season the numbers were closer to 8.5 million. With Chase sometimes unsure of whether to continue, there were huge gaps between some seasons.
And in recent years, "The Sopranos" has been attacked for not always measuring up to its own high standards.
But, even with the show available on DVD and in (expurgated) reruns on A&E, it will haunt -- like a ghost.
"It's been such a big part of my life -- it's been almost 10 years. I was 16 when we started and I've been through so much through this whole ride," said Sigler. "I only hope to do something half as good."

EW review: 'Reaping' a bad movie

2007-04-05T10:00:00.000-07:00

Entertainment Weekly) -- Katherine Winter, played by Hilary Swank in her dutiful-yuppie-good-listener mode, is a former minister, and now a professor, who travels the world defusing the lustrous credibility of miracles. Swank must know the feeling: She has won two Academy Awards, and she's still doing movies like "The Reaping."
Katherine is summoned to the sleepy Bible Belt backwater of Haven, Louisiana, and the first thing she confronts is a river of blood -- a pretty cool image, to be sure, though Katherine is certain there's a rational explanation for it.
To her, science can explain everything, and she hews to that belief (which is really a lack of Belief, you see), at one point delineating how the 10 biblical plagues were all natural phenomena. This woman could witness the parting of the Red Sea and think, without hesitation, that it should be reported to the Weather Channel.
In "The Reaping," every one of those biblical plagues appears, but they can't be accounted for by science, only by studio executives who theorize that an apocalyptic "religious" horror movie is the perfect way to tap into the evangelical market. (It sure beats the PG-rated piffle released by FoxFaith films.)
Having seen the error of her ways (science = bad!), our heroine finds the reverence to battle frogs, dead cows, locusts, and -- just to hedge the movie's bets -- a spooky blond girl who could be Satan's messenger. But no belief on earth can rescue Swank from a film that's a chain of disaster chintz masquerading as a sermon

Kid from 'Third Rock' enjoying new challenges

2007-04-04T18:35:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Many young men come to Hollywood to act, but former child star Joseph Gordon-Levitt had to leave to learn what it truly means to be an actor.
In the late 1990s, Gordon-Levitt co-starred as a wise-cracking teen alien on the NBC television comedy "3rd Rock From the Sun," and the 25-year-old's new film, "The Lookout," opened Friday.
Good early reviews for the crime thriller and for two of Gordon-Levitt's recent movies -- he was lauded for low-budget festival films "Mysterious Skin" and "Brick" -- have critics and filmmakers praising him as one of the best actors of his generation.
But plaudits like those might not have come had he not left Tinseltown, taken a bite out of the Big Apple, and attended Columbia University for a while, Gordon-Levitt told Reuters. He also credited his parents, who he described as "hippies back in the '60s," with keeping his mind off Hollywood fame and fortune and allowing him to grow into his own.
"About the time I came back to acting, it wasn't just for my own fun anymore, I had found that I cared about the rest of the world, instead of just myself, and wanted to find a way to connect to the rest of the world," he said.
"When I was a kid, I used to hate any sort of recognition. It would make me nervous," he added. "But now, when people say they saw 'Mysterious Skin' and it meant something to them, or 'Brick' and it inspired them, or even '3rd Rock' makes them laugh, that really means something to me."
Gordon-Levitt, who has been acting since age 6, said he now judges roles based on whether he enjoys the script, finds the characters intriguing, or will be working with people who are passionate about a project.
He said he found all three in the role of a brain-damaged young man named Chris Pratt who is lured into a bank robbery in writer/director Scott Frank's "The Lookout."
The movie gets close to a 90 percent positive rating on Web site rottentomatoes.com, which compiles reviews, and Richard Roeper, film critic for TV show Ebert & Roeper, has said Gordon-Levitt "joins the ranks of our best young actors," in the role.
"In many scripts, the characters are one-dimensional. If it's a hero, he's all good," Gordon-Levitt said. "But all the characters in 'The Lookout' are more complicated. I play the hero, but there's a lot you can blame him for."
His character, Pratt, was a star high school hockey player who severely injures himself and his friends in a car wreck.
Years later, Pratt works as a bank janitor but has problems with his short-term memory, and longs for the life he once enjoyed. This allows him to be lured into helping rob the bank.
Despite his flaws, audiences root for Pratt because Gordon-Levitt portrays him as an everyday guy who has lost his way in life.
"Besides the injury, there is also -- and I think it's more interesting and more damaging -- his shame, his guilt, his regret, his inability to live in the present and wallowing in the past," said Gordon-Levitt. "That is something I think all of us can identify with."
Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Voice of 'in a world' becomes a famous face

2007-04-04T06:48:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- There was a moment at one of those Hollywood awards shows recently that seemed finally to cement Don LaFontaine's place in television and film history, sort of like a star on the Walk of Fame, only, not.
(What's that? Don't recognize the name Don LaFontaine? Hold on ... It's coming ... )
He walked over to introduce himself to Ian McShane, star of the HBO drama "Deadwood." But before LaFontaine could open his mouth, McShane smiled, dropped his voice to a timbre that seemed a cross between Darth Vader and Dirty Harry, and intoned: "IN A WORLD ..."
This is big, reaaally big -- not because it showed that LaFontaine's trademark movie-trailer catchphrase, as in "In a world where ... violence rules" or "In a world where ... men are slaves and women are the conquerors," is so universally known.
No, it's because LaFontaine -- "That Announcer Guy From the Movies" -- hadn't uttered a word.
"The Voice" had not spoken. (Listen to "The Voice" do his thing)
This is especially telling, considering the cliche so commonly used in describing LaFontaine: "You may not know his face, but you certainly know his voice."
"The Voice" asked, quite politely, that this story NOT start that way.
It couldn't possibly. McShane did know the face. Chances are you do, too -- now. Think Geico commercial. The bald guy with sandy mustache and headphones standing in the kitchen of a "real Geico customer," orating, "In a world where both of our cars were totally under water ..."
LaFontaine has worked in Hollywood for decades, reached the top of his craft, earned plenty and won accolades. And yet, as he might say himself: In a world where exposure is everything, putting a face to the voice behind 5,000 movie trailers can give a guy a whole new perspective.
Suddenly this fixture of show business -- one of its hardest-working, albeit obscure, artists -- became something else: a kind of celebrity. Visibility brought newfound admiration to a behind-the-scenes star and his rather invisible industry.
'Expect anonymity' -- or not
"Expect anonymity," LaFontaine once wrote in a book about the business of voice-over work. Never mind recognizing him, he went on, "Strangers never recognize my voice when I'm out in public."
Truth be told, there was one guy, behind the counter at a book store in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, who discerned LaFontaine's locution as that from the "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" television promos.
But even the Geico advertising folks didn't have a clue who he was when they were brainstorming "The Testimonial Campaign," a series of spots featuring real customers and B-listers such as Little Richard and Charo.
"Somebody blurts out, 'Hey, what about that movie announcer guy?' The other one goes, 'Well, what's his name? What does he look like? Who is that guy?' That's how it all started," explains Dean Jarrett of The Martin Agency.
Googling "voice-over guy," they eventually found LaFontaine.
Recognition, in all forms, just isn't a part of the voice-over world, where an artist's "stage" is an isolated sound booth and performers are known more for their voice-over pseudonyms than their given names. There's "The Voice of Porky Pig" (Bob Bergen), "The Voice of Zatarain's" Cajun foods (Rodney Saulsberry), "The Voice of Food Network" (Joe Cipriano) and so on.
LaFontaine is often referred to as "The Voice of God." But you won't find his moniker on a film credit alongside "best boy" and "production caterer."
There are no Oscars for voice-over work. An annual fest dubbed the "Golden Trailer Awards" does honor the movie preview medium, including a category for "Best Voice Over." Still, film actors who lend their voices to trailers tend to take home the prize (a hefty trophy topped with a miniature trailer, as in Winnebago) rather than voice-over professionals like LaFontaine.
"You sort of take it for granted, those voices," says LaFontaine's wife, Nita, whose own response after learning years ago what her husband-to-be did for a living went something like: I never thought of people doing that.
LaFontaine insists he never cared that no one knew him, though everyone knew his voice. Voice-over artists "get credit in our bank accounts," he quips.
Now, post-Geico, it's different.
There are autograph requests. Comments on the streets of Las Vegas. On YouTube, where LaFontaine's on-camera turn has notched more than 86,000 hits, this kind of stuff:
"Finally I get to see who the person is with that voice."
"Don is awesome! I just read his birthday (is) one day before mine....cool!"
"DON ROCKS."
"He's been, for 40 years, the best in this business -- in the shadows," says longtime friend and fellow voice-over artist Paul Pape. "This is a great little benefit for him at this point in his life."
For the voice-over business, as well. LaFontaine's visibility, Pape says, "is shedding some light that there are people behind the microphones and behind the cameras that are contributing in ways that they don't always get recognized for."
At 66 years old, LaFontaine still averages seven to 10 voice-over sessions a day, with the potential for up to 40 different reads. He does all of this from a home studio his wife nicknamed "The Hole," where an incessantly chirping fax machine delivers scripts hour after hour.
One recent afternoon, LaFontaine cranked out three takes for this summer's "The Simpsons Movie," four promo reads for the Fox comedy "The Winner," followed by promos for "Trading Spouses" ("Will the conclusion of the same-sex swap turn violent?"), "Nanny 911" ("The amazing triplet tamer."), "24" ("The race to stop a nuclear nightmare blows wide open!") and more.
In the heydays of the 1980s and '90s, when LaFontaine might do 200 reads a day, he got his own limousine and hired a driver to shuttle him between studios.
Establishing a 'world'
The voice America has come to know in movie houses and on television developed at the tender age of 13, when LaFontaine's prepubescent squeak went to bass and continued to grow deeper with time.
After working as an Army recording engineer, LaFontaine landed a gig at National Recording Studios in New York alongside radio producer Floyd Peterson. It was the early '60s, and Peterson was working on a new project: producing radio spots for movies, which until then had been advertised in print or with studio-made theatrical trailers.
LaFontaine pitched in, writing copy, recording, and mixing sound, and the two eventually went into business together -- helping develop the format for the modern-day trailer and scripting some of those punchy phrases that pervade theatrical trailers to this day.
That includes his trademark, which he explains this way: "We are taking people ... and we are literally about to transport them into a different dimension, a different world entirely. So we have to very rapidly establish the world we are transporting them to, and that's very easily done by saying, 'In a world where ... "
Lending his own voice to the words he wrote happened by accident. In 1964, when an announcer failed to show for a job, LaFontaine recorded himself reading copy and sent it to the studio with a message: "This is what it'll sound like when we get a 'real' announcer." The studio thought he was "real" enough, and thus "Gunfighters of Casa Grande" became LaFontaine's first trailer.
His career took off when he moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1981. He'd planned on working as an independent producer, but he started doing promos for the major television networks, and the work -- TV work, then movie work -- just never stopped coming.
Comedies. Dramas. Action flicks. Animated films. Horror pictures.
"The voice that launched a thousand movies ... thousands of movies, actually," began a video tribute at The Hollywood Reporter's Key Art Awards, where LaFontaine was presented a lifetime achievement award in 2005.
Based on Screen Actors Guild contracts signed, he estimates he may well be the busiest actor in the organization's history.
"Within the industry, he's known as The Man, the Michael Jordan of his game," Pape says.
But even the greatest get sidelined, and LaFontaine notes that the bulk of trailer work these days is spread among other voice-over talent or done by actors actually featured in the films. Producers "want to discover the next hot voice," LaFontaine says.
That hardly seems to matter now, because since last year's premiere of his on-camera commercial, his face -- not just his voice -- is everywhere.
He's appeared on the Carson Daly show, "The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch," "Today," CBS' "The Early Show."
The Screen Actors Guild, at its January awards show, saluted LaFontaine and other voice-over artists in a tribute called "Heard But Not Seen" -- where they were, actually, seen.
And LaFontaine suspects his budding celebrity had something to do with being asked, for the first time, to serve as an announcer at this year's Academy Awards. He was the "Coming up next" guy, and the show included a brief on-screen glimpse.
"Flattering," LaFontaine demurs about the new visibility. But he adds: "Being famous for being famous is probably the ultimate kind of silly celebrity."
As he told his friend Pape during a break from Oscars' rehearsals: "You wanna talk about surreal? Have Al Gore come up to you and say he saw you in an insurance commercial."
His belated fame isn't really about fame at all, LaFontaine says. It's about finally knowing that folks like your work and appreciate you, because they finally know who "you" are.
Suddenly, fans
In closing, an interesting fact about "The Voice of God." God, turns out, is soft-spoken when he steps out from behind the mic.
"Could you speak up a little bit?" an audience member asked LaFontaine at a recent seminar for voice-over wannabes. Hundreds attended. Men and women of all ages and backgrounds. A 12-year-old kid. A stunt woman looking for a change, who gushed to LaFontaine, "I just wanted to meet you."
Others said LaFontaine should really get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
"Let's start that campaign," someone said. "Tonight!"
During a break LaFontaine's longtime agent, Steve Tisherman, pulled him aside to discuss business.
"Did you get my e-mail? I called 'Identity.' "
"What's 'Identity?"' LaFontaine asked.
"It's an NBC show. They get 16 people up there -- a gardener, an artist -- and it's the job of the contestant to go, 'That guy's the artist!' and see how many professions they can get right."
"Well," LaFontaine responded, "people would know who I am."
"You'd be an easy guess for somebody. That's fine," Tisherman said. "They loved the idea."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

No expectations from Fountains of Wayne writer

2007-04-03T19:54:00.000-07:00

CNN) -- Adam Schlesinger is in demand.
The Fountains of Wayne bassist and songwriter doesn't just write songs for his band, he also writes for his other band, Ivy, as well as for the movies. (The film "Music and Lyrics" featured three Schlesinger songs, including the film's central creation, "Way Back Into Love.")
But despite the ability of Schlesinger and his FOW bandmate Chris Collingwood to write power-pop confections -- often about the elements and characters of everyday American life -- the band has notched just one Top 40 hit, "Stacy's Mom," off the group's 2003 album, "Welcome Interstate Managers."
The group, also consisting of drummer Brian Young and guitarist Jody Porter, is releasing its fourth album of new material, "Traffic and Weather," Tuesday. Schlesinger talked with CNN about songwriting for the band -- and other jobs -- from his home in New York. This is an edited version of the interview.
CNN: When you sit down to write a song, is there a particular philosophy? There are character types -- people from the [New York] area -- who tend to pop up in your songs over and over.
ADAM SCHLESINGER: I certainly wouldn't call it a philosophy, there's no sort of big idea that gets funneled into smaller song ideas. Something sparks an idea for a song, whether it's a couple lines or whether it's a situation or sometimes even a fragment of a melody. Most of the time, I don't even have an idea of what I'm writing about until I've gotten halfway into it.
CNN: Your songs are often so detailed, but there's always a risk, in including these details, in having the song become dated instead of timeless. Does that concern you?
SCHLESINGER: To me, we're not necessarily trying to make something timeless. ... [Yes,] it runs the risk of placing itself in a certain period. But I think that's OK. I think that we really try to make a lot of this stuff seem real and based in the real world, and all that kind of crap -- like band names and brand names -- I think all those things are part of day-to-day life, and I think it gives it more of a flavor of reality.
CNN: When I listen to the songs, I'm sometimes reminded of Randy Newman. He can be generous to his characters, but in other songs he seems glib and snide. Is that a difficult line to walk for you guys?
SCHLESINGER: We don't ever create a character in order to make fun of him. I don't even understand what that means, to be honest. We just make up a song and tell a story about somebody doing something.
CNN: But I hear [the new album's] " '92 Subaru" and ... it's easy to look down your nose at someone like this. I'm not saying you guys are -- it also comes from the listener, what the listener brings to it, which may say more about me than it does about you.
SCHLESINGER: Well, the song's supposed to be funny. It's not really supposed to be an indictment of somebody. ... That whole song was about what if you took this macho classic-rock sounding track, a little bit Doobie Brothers or Little Feat or something, and had him singing about a really weak car. (laughs) But that's it to that song. There's not much more to it. ... It's just about a guy who bought a crappy car and is thinking he's going to make something out of it, and that's it.
CNN: Are you the kind of person that if [a song] doesn't work right away you set it aside, or do you just try to bash through it?
SCHLESINGER: Sometimes it can be incredibly hard to finish something. There are certain songs that come together really quickly, and others I feel like I have something that's good and something that I don't want to throw in the garbage, but I can't figure out what to do with for a long time.
Actually, there are a few of those on this record. The first song, "Someone to Love," I had incarnations of that kicking around for a really long time and in fact I had the verses and I had these character ideas and I couldn't figure out what to do with them. For awhile I was actually just using the chorus from "Eleanor Rigby" as a placeholder. I had this idea of lonely people and doing something about lonely people and I couldn't figure out where to go with it, and I suddenly hit on this chorus idea and it came together. But it went through a couple earlier passes that didn't work.
Even with some of the seemingly more frivolous ones, like " '92 Subaru" or "Strapped for Cash," I'll have the basic layout of the song and I'll have the idea and I'll have the hook, but it'll take me awhile to flesh out every line, because I don't want to have any duds in there.
CNN: I've noticed that. Nothing seems tossed off.
SCHLESINGER: Yeah. That's the thing, with the kind of writing we do, there's sort of nowhere to hide. If you have a line that doesn't work it sticks out really badly. That's not to say that what we're doing is such incredible high art, but it's the type of song that we're writing. ...
I've seen people write things online where they'll go in [and talk about lyrics]. I saw something the other day about the song "Hackensack" from our last record, where someone was saying, "You know, they really crapped out on this one verse because it says, 'Now I work for my dad,' and the rhyme they came up with was 'The hours are pretty bad.' " The guy was giving us [guff] for not coming up with a better second line. And maybe he was right. But that's the thing.
CNN: Does the record company say, "Give us another 'Stacy's Mom' "?
SCHLESINGER: I don't really think there's any pressure. I'm sure they'd like it if there was a song that they think sounded like a hit.
But the weird thing is nobody thought "Stacy's Mom" sounded like a hit when we handed that in, either. We didn't have a record deal at the time we recorded that, and we took that song around to just about everybody. The only guy that heard a hit with it was the guy who signed us, Steve Greenberg, and he made it a hit.
CNN: I'm sure people come to you with preconceptions of what Fountains of Wayne should be about, because "you guys can be the ..."
SCHLESINGER: After all our records people sometimes write what we should do on the next record -- that we should go this direction or that direction -- as if we have any kind of meetings about directions. (laughs) People don't realize that when you're writing songs you're just trying to write whatever you can write. ... We just basically keep writing songs and pick the best of the batch and that's pretty much as far as we plan it out.
CNN: What's going to happen with this album?
SCHLESINGER: We're very excited about it and we're going to go on tour. ... You know, we're just happy to be out doing it again and having a new batch of stuff to play.
As far as our expectations -- we never have any. We just keep doing what we do.

Miss America looking for new TV home

2007-04-03T01:58:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - For the second time in three years,
Miss America' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> Miss America is all dressed up and looking to attract a new television network, pageant organizers said on Friday.
Country music cable channel CMT, which picked up the beauty contest and moved it to Las Vegas for two years after Miss America was dumped from its longtime home network, ABC, in 2004, said late on Thursday it was pulling the plug as well.
The Nashville, Tennessee-based CMT informed Miss America's organizers this week it was declining its option to televise the 86-year-old event during any of the next four years, starting in 2008.
No specific reason was given. But CMT general manager Brian Philips said his network was looking to build a programming slate of more original series and more music-centered specials.
The pageant's ratings slump was another likely factor. CMT's live broadcast of the event fell from 3.1 million viewers in 2006 to 2.4 million in January of this year, when aspiring Broadway actress Lauren Nelson won the crown.
ABC's last telecast of the pageant in 2004 also hit a ratings low, despite the introduction of skimpier swimsuits and other format changes aimed at boosting viewership.
Miss America's organizers are in talks with several other networks to pick up the pageant and hope to have a deal in place soon, a spokeswoman told Reuters. She declined to elaborate.
The Atlantic City, New Jersey-based pageant also said Emmy Award-winning TV producer Don Mischer would return as producer of the show next year.
News that Miss America and CMT had parted ways came days after NBC announced it had renewed its deal with real estate mogul Donald Trump and the
Miss Universe' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> Miss Universe Organization to televise the Miss Universe and
Miss USA' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> Miss USA pageants for three more years.
A string of recent scandals have helped focus new attention on the pageant industry, most notably revelations of underage drinking that nearly cost troubled beauty queen Tara Conner her crown near the end of her reign as Miss USA.
The Miss America pageant was first broadcast on live television in 1954, with Lee Meriwether, then a 19-year-old drama student from California who would later star on the "Barnaby Jones" TV series in the 1970s, being the first to cry tears of joy as the winning contestant.

Sean Lennon used to being recognized, sort of

2007-04-02T19:10:00.000-07:00

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (AP) -- Sean Lennon is accustomed to people recognizing him because of his famous parents, but one incident really caught him off-guard.
"When I was 15, a cabdriver asked me if I was Paul McCartney's daughter," the 31-year-old singer told AP Radio in a recent interview. "That really blew my mind."
Lennon said he usually finds himself unfazed by all the attention he gets as the son of Yoko Ono and former Beatle John Lennon, who was killed in New York City in 1980.
"I don't have any perspective on a life without people freaking out about my parents, so I don't know what it would be like for that not to happen," he said.
"People only have glimpses of like, you know, who I might be and I don't think people have a real sense of what I'm like necessarily," he said. "I get the spoiled-rich-kid thing a lot and I get the serious-thing a lot, but I think people are misunderstanding me."
Lennon, who is on tour in support of his latest album, "Friendly Fire," prefers to be on the road.
"I like playing music live for people because it's the way music was meant to be heard," he said. "We've only been recording music for a couple hundred years."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

The best -- and worst -- movie battle scenes

2007-04-01T20:20:00.000-07:00

Wham! Pow! Zap! Argh! To celebrate the launch of the ultimate battle movie, 300, we've compiled a list of our favorite on-screen battle scenes -- and the ones which really made us cringe.
Don't agree? Think we've missed one? Email your list to thescreeningroom@cnn.com and we'll publish the best.
The best ...
1. Apocalypse Now -- Helicopter attackFrancis Ford Coppola, 1979"I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like victory." Robert Duvall's helicopters wreak bloody destruction upon a Vietnamese village to the strains of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries in order to secure a beachhead for a bit of post-combat surfing. No cinematic moment better captures the folly, absurdity and tragic human cost of America's war against the Vietcong.
2. Saving Private Ryan -- Omaha Beach landingSteven Spielberg, 1998The graphic depiction of the Omaha beach D-Day landing shocked audiences and even induced flashbacks in Normandy veterans. The shaky, hand held cameras, the desaturated color and the unflinching portrayal of the near-suicidal assault all add up to a sickening sense of realism that remains unmatched in war films.
3= Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers -- Helm's DeepPeter Jackson, 2002The dull, impending stomp of Saruman's army; the ceaseless onslaught of the Uruk Hai; the inevitable breaching of the unbreachable fort. Jackson captures the desperation of the 300 men facing a host of Orcs 10,000-strong, and the terror of their women and children, against the long, rain-drenched night in the most atmospheric of the Lord of the Rings battles. Oh, the relief when Gandalf arrives on time. (Still not convinced by Legolas skateboarding down the ramparts, though.)
3= Lord of the Rings: Return of the King -- Pelennor Fields (until the Army of the Dead arrive)Peter Jackson, 2003The Orcs get even more hideous, the Oliphaunts are awe-inspiring, the Winged Nazgul had you cowering behind your popcorn. Theoden is at last redeemed on the battlefield, and with one line and swish of her sword, Eowyn proves she's equal with the men. This spectacular whirlwind of CGI, distorted sound and awesome scale stunned audiences, and was rightly hailed as a movie milestone. Then it all goes horribly wrong. (See below.)
5. A Bridge Too Far -- Parachute dropRichard Attenborough, 1977Thousands of doomed Allied troops are dispatched behind enemy lines in an awe-inspiring parachute drop, followed by the climactic tank and infantry battle over the bridge at Arnhem. Richard Attenborough's cast is stellar (including Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Sean Connery, Dirk Bogarde, Ryan O'Neal and Robert Redford) and his pre-CGI achievement staggering.
6. Tora! Tora! Tora! -- Attack on Pearl HarborRichard Fleischer, Kinji Fukasaku, Toshio Masuda, 1970There are two good films about Pearl Harbor. Neither of them is called Pearl Harbor (see below). If "From Here to Eternity" dealt brilliantly with the human drama of the event, "Tora! Tora! Tora!" captures the sheer audacity of the Japanese aerial raid on the naval base. Massively expensive for its time (it cost an estimated $25 million) and featuring three directors, one American and two Japanese, this is truly filmmaking on an epic scale.
7. Zulu -- Battle of Rourke's DriftCy Endfield, 1964"Zulus, thousands of 'em" -- as Michael Caine never said. The portrayal of the 1879 Battle of Rourke's Drift has proved deeply influential, inspiring Peter Jackson's staging of the Battle of Helm's Deep and echoed in Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers. You still feel the chill in the pit of your stomach when you see the tidal wave of Zulu impis running down the side of the valley at the meager 150 British soldiers.
8. Starship Troopers -- Battle of Klendathu, Battle on Planet PPaul Verhoeven, 1997"They sucked his brains out!"A bloody bugfest on Klendathu sees 100,000 troops hacked, ripped and squished to death in an hour; then we follow Rico's roughnecks to Planet P where his poorly-equipped infantry are sent back as bait for thousands of spiky Arachnids. But is it really the bugs who're the evil ones? Slick, smart B-movie action.
9. Braveheart -- Battle of StirlingMel Gibson, 1995"They may take our lives, but they will never take our FREEDOM!"Woaded-up Mel Gibson plays Scottish rebel William Wallace and tries nobly to overthrow the beastly English. His victory at the Battle of Stirling is scarcely a model of historical accuracy, but tremendous fun nonetheless and, if there were one, Gibson's rousing taunts would have won him the Oscar for best battlefield banter.
10. Gladiator -- Battle in GermaniaRidley Scott, 2000Classical chaos in the thrilling Germania opening battle, as the Romans pitch a mudfight against hairy, scary forest-dwelling barbarians. Russell Crowe single-handedly revived epic sword-and-sandal films; thousands of movie extras cheered, then were digitally replaced.
And the worst ...
Star Wars: Return of the Jedi -- Battle of EndorRichard Marquand, 1983The Empire's frighteningly efficient professional armored troops, backed by the power of the Dark Side, complete with towering Scout Walkers, speeder bikes and ray guns get defeated by ... a bunch of overgrown Tribbles armed with rocks and creepers. Er, no. Not even with Han Solo on your side.
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace -- Battle of NabooGeorge Lucas, 1999A chilling multitude of battle droids, reminiscent of Wall-era Pink Floyd; an outnumbered coalition of oppressed good guys; lashings of lightsaber action. The trouble is, we just don't care. And in the world's worst cinematic travesty ever, Qui-Gon Jinn dies; Jar Jar Binks doesn't. Life just ain't fair.
King Arthur -- Battle of Badon HillAntoine Fuqua, 2004This muddy, bloody yawn-fest stretched even the most credulous Bruckheimer fans. We're supposed to root for irritatingly feisty Keira Knightley battling in a ridiculous leather/woad bikini combo? Hand-to-hand with a bunch of hefty Saxon invaders? In the dead of winter? Give us a break.
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King -- Pelennor FieldsPeter Jackson, 2003... and then the staunch resistance of the Men of Gondor and the Rohirrim's endeavors on the battlefield are all rendered utterly pointless when the Army of the Dead swoop in at the end. Couldn't they have turned up a bit earlier? An oversimplified cop out.
Dune -- Battle of ArrakisDavid Lynch, 1984What could be more awe-inspiring than Kyle Maclachlan riding a vacuum-cleaner hose disguised as a giant sandworm as he leads his Fremen warriors into battle against the legions of Sardaukar? Quite a lot of things, as it turned out. A so-bad-it's-almost-good $30 million turkey that tried and failed to be the next Star Wars. Great death for Baron Harkkonen, though.
Pearl Harbor -- Attack on Pearl HarborMichael Bay, 2001This bloated extravaganza manages to turn the tragedy of Pearl Harbor into a schmaltzy love triangle constructed from Hollywood's finest overpaid wood. Worse still, Ben Affleck survives.
Now it's your turn. What are your favorite -- and worst -- battle scenes in the movies? Email your list to yourviews@cnn.com and we'll publish the best.

Cover for final 'Potter' revealed

2007-04-01T10:55:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK (AP) -- What picture shows a dramatic gold and orange sky and a teenage boy in glasses reaching upward?
It's the cover to the seventh and final Harry Potter book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," coming out July 21. As always, the cover was designed by illustrator Mary GrandPre, U.S. publisher Scholastic, Inc., announced Wednesday.
"The structures around Harry show evident destruction and in the shadows behind him, we see outlines of other people," David Saylor, Scholastic's art director, said in a statement. (Gallery: A guide to Harry Potter)
"For the first time, the cover is a wraparound. On the back cover spidery hands are outstretched toward Harry. Only when the book is opened does one see a powerful image of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, his glowing red eyes peering out from his hood."
J.K. Rowling's fantasy series has sold more than 325 million copies worldwide. "Deathly Hallows" has an announced first printing of 12 million in the United States alone.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Spears, K-Fed divorce reach settlement

2007-04-01T06:17:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- A week after emerging from a rehab center, pop star Britney Spears has reached a divorce settlement with her husband, former backup dancer Kevin Federline, a spokesman for his attorney said Friday.
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
But a statement issued by Michael Sands, spokesman for Federline's lawyer, said, "The parties signed an agreement which was a global settlement on all issues of their marriage and child custody."
The couple have two sons together, 18-month-old Sean Preston, and 6-month-old Jayden James.
Celebrity Web site TMZ.com quoted unnamed sources as saying that Federline, who has tried to launch a new career as a singer, will receive $1 million as part of the settlement, and that the couple agreed to joint custody of their boys.
A source close to the couple told Reuters the $1 million figure was inaccurate but declined to say how much it really was.
The agreement, which is subject to final approval of a judge, was signed after a five-hour meeting between the couple and their lawyers Thursday in Los Angeles, Sands said.
Sands said a breakthrough in the talks came after Federline, 29, stepped away to smoke a cigarette, and Spears followed him outside. They had a 15-minute private conversation, then returned to the negotiating table, he said.
Spears, 25, who left a rehabilitation center last week after a month of treatment for undisclosed issues, filed for divorce from Federline in November.
The two married in September 2004, just eight months after she had wed a former high school sweetheart in Las Vegas in a spur-of-the-moment union that was quickly annulled.
Since her split last year from Federline, who has two children by a former girlfriend, Spears has made headlines for increasingly erratic behavior.
She checked into the Malibu treatment center on February 21 after shaving off her hair at a Los Angeles beauty salon.
The exact reasons for entering rehab were not made clear, but she was photographed making her way to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings outside the center during her stay there.
According to TMZ.com, Spears returned to the Hollywood club scene Thursday night after her settlement with Federline, paying a 30-minute visit to the Bridge Restaurant and Lounge.
Spears' singing career has remained virtually dormant since her marriage to Federline. She shot to fame as a teenager in 1999 and sold an estimated 70 million records. Her last album of new material, "In the Zone," was released in 2003.
Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Miss America Pageant dumped again

2007-04-01T03:04:00.000-07:00

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) -- The Miss America Pageant has been dropped by Country Music Television, leaving the 86-year-old competition without a TV outlet for the second time in three years.
The Viacom-owned network, which had rights to air the pageant through 2011, notified the Atlantic City, New Jersey-based organization that it will not exercise its option to televise the contest "in 2008 and beyond," the cable network said in a statement issued to The Associated Press on Thursday.
Pageant officials said they've begun the search for a new TV home.
"It's been a very good two-year run," said pageant head Art McMaster. "But we're going to get out there and make the calls and see what the best offer is."
The news is another blow to an American institution that has struggled to find a place in modern popular culture. After 50 years on network television, ABC dropped Miss America in 2004 when ratings fell to a record low. Nashville, Tennessee-based CMT picked up the pageant, moved it to Las Vegas from its home in Atlantic City and updated its look with reality-TV elements. The changes won a younger audience.
CMT executive vice president Brian Philips cited the network's focus on original programming, not ratings, for the decision.
"As a network, CMT is now in a more aggressive position to build off of existing series and launch more original series and music-centric special events," Philips said in a statement.
CMT has found success with its concert show "CMT Crossroads" and the reality show "Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team."
The pageant and scholarship program, for years a volunteer-run celebration of do-goodery, has made attempts to conform to reality TV's stunts-and-sizzle formula. It added a quiz show, then took it away. It added viewer voting, took it away and brought it back. The 2007 pageant programming included a "Pageant School" reality show special and contestant biographies telecast in advance of the crowning.
The January crowning of Miss Oklahoma Lauren Nelson as Miss America drew 2.4 million viewers.
Rival pageant Miss USA, which doesn't have a talent contest, isn't having the same trouble.
NBC, a part owner of Miss USA, announced Thursday that it had renewed its contract with pageant co-owner Donald Trump and the Miss Universe Organization to broadcast the Miss Universe and Miss USA competitions until 2011.
About 7.4 million viewers tuned in for the crowning of Miss USA 2007 last week.
But neither pageant today can approach the historical numbers of Miss America. The contest, which began as a publicity stunt for Atlantic City boardwalk business owners, became a TV event of Super Bowl proportions, getting 80 million viewers in its heyday.
Sam Haskell, chairman of the Miss America Organization board and former head of television for the William Morris talent agency, said he's using his connections to shop the pageant around. He said he hopes to continue relationships with Don Mischer, the producer of the 2007 show, and the Aladdin hotel-casino, the pageant's home since it moved to Las Vegas in 2006.
Robert Earl, co-chairman of Planet Hollywood, the owner of the Aladdin, said he hoped for a "continued relationship."
Haskell said he received early interest from cable and network channels, but he would not provide details.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Usher engaged to longtime girlfriend

2007-04-01T03:02:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK (AP) -- Usher is engaged to his longtime girlfriend, stylist Tameka Foster, the R&B singer's spokeswoman said Friday.
Publicist Simone Smalls didn't provide further details.
Usher, a five-time Grammy winner, confirmed the engagement Wednesday to MTV News, ending speculation that he had popped the question.
Foster has been photographed recently with a diamond ring on her finger.
Usher, 28, said he could be walking down the aisle before the end of the year.
His hits include "Confessions," "Burn," "You Make Me Wanna" and "Yeah!"
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Review: 'Blades of Glory' scores hilariously

2007-03-31T23:10:00.000-07:00

(CNN) -- They say that figure skating requires the elegance of a royal court, the grace of a ballerina, the speed of a sprinter, the balance of a tightrope walker, the endurance of a marathon runner, the coordination of a juggler, the strength of a high jumper and the rhythm of a dancer.
So Will Ferrell's surely not the first name that comes to mind when considering the sport.
But once you've seen him hit the rink in body-hugging red spandex with a "cowboy" leather jacket and chaps, there's no looking away. In "Blades of Glory," he is Chazz Michael Michaels, the bad boy of figure skating, "sex on ice."
Jon Heder is Jimmy MacElroy, Chazz's fiercest rival and also his polar opposite: a classical skater who embodies the elegance, grace and beauty of the sport. The first time we see MacElroy strut his stuff he's wearing his famous purple peacock combination, complete with tail feathers and glove puppet. (Watch Ferrell and Heder get revealing )
When raunchy, rebellious Chazz has to share the winners' podium with winsome, antiseptic Jimmy, push comes to shove and they are soon trading blows in front of shocked fans and dignitaries -- and a TV audience of millions. They're both banned from the sport for life.
But three years later, the two washouts realize there is a loophole in the ruling. They could still compete, but only if they team up as a pair.
It's an irresistibly silly idea (though not one the International Olympics Committee is likely to countenance any time soon) and "Blades of Glory" knows just where the comedy gold is hidden.
"What do you two have that the other teams don't?" demands grizzled coach Craig T. Nelson.
"Two [penises]," says Chazz.
Exactly.
Letting it all hang out
Ferrell -- who gave Sacha Baron Cohen a long, passionate kiss in "Talladega Nights" and who has stripped in pretty much everything except "Elf" -- knows that sexual humiliation earns big yuks. The film's artfully choreographed guy-on-guy action is a laugh riot. In what must be considered the movie's money shot, Ferrell grits his teeth and gingerly hoists his partner above his head by his crotch. Man, that's gotta hurt.
Refreshingly, especially after the shrill disavowals of male intimacy throughout "Wild Hogs," "Blades of Glory" permits its hetero heroes to get beyond the wince factor and bond -- and not just in a fistfight, either.
Although he doesn't get script credit and he's not working with regular collaborator Adam McKay here (it's actually co-directed by Josh Gordon and Will Speck, with a screenplay credited to Jeff and Craig Cox, among others), Ferrell remains the movie's alpha male.
Sporting a Jim Morrison 'do and bringing his voice down an octave, he makes self-confessed sex addict Chazz another in his long line of vainglorious dunderheads. "He's still playing George Bush," a colleague whispered to me -- and if he isn't, he's playing Ricky Bobby's second cousin.
But Farrell's flamboyant oafs remain endearing for their guileless childishness, "mind-bottling" way with words, and the star's willingness to let it all hang out ("I thought you'd like to see what a real skater's body looks like," he tells Jimmy over his paunch).
Heder, blond-haired and modeling a series of pastel turtlenecks, has less to play with. It's like putting Donny Osmond up against John McEnroe. But the toothsome "Napoleon Dynamite" star holds up his end in the petulant squabbles that make up the bulk of the off-ice time, and he appears to know his lutz from his salchow.
Too vindictive for comfort, Will Arnett and Amy Poehler are the creepy brother-and-sister ice-dancing champs, Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg, ersatz heavies in matching pink tulle (props to costume designer Julie Weiss, who clearly had herself a ball).
"Blades of Glory" takes a soft target and runs rings around it for 93 amusing minutes. Ferrell isn't breaking new ground, but one day -- when he's branching out to play psycho killers and getting in touch with his inner Thespian -- we'll look back on his clowning period and wonder why he would want to do anything else.
"Blades of Glory" is rated PG-13 and runs 93 minutes. For Entertainment Weekly's take, click here.

Singer's 'debauched' image not whole story

2007-03-31T23:05:00.000-07:00

LONDON, England (AP) -- First off, there's the diminutive singer's look: a black beehive of hair, mascara-drenched eyes, old-style sailor tattoos. It's part Dusty Springfield, part Morticia Addams.
Then, there's the 23-year-old's extraordinary voice, like Billie Holiday channeling the Shangri-Las.
The combination helped push Winehouse's second album, the soaring, Phil Spector-ish "Back to Black," to the top of the British charts and many critics' year-end best lists in 2006. It was released in the U.S. in mid-March. (Watch Winehouse on loving "all or nothing"
But her music is not the only thing about her that garners attention. Her high-voltage personality and reputation for heavy drinking and smoking, and blunt speaking, have landed her, time and again, in the pages of the tabloid press.
It's an image Winehouse's songs do nothing to dispel. "Back to Black" spawned the hit song "Rehab," with its autobiographical refrain: "They tried to make me go to rehab/I said no, no, no."
"I listen to a lot of '60s music, but society is different now," said Winehouse, fresh from winning a Brit Award as the year's best female British act. "I'm a young woman, and I'm going to write about what I know."
It's a winning formula -- "Back to Black" is a compelling combination of the retro and the risque.
Whereas Winehouse's first album, 2003's "Frank," drew on hip-hop and jazz, "Back to Black" turns for inspiration to the dense harmonies, soaring, orchestral arrangements and heart-on-sleeve emotion of early Motown and 1960s girl groups.
If the sound is shimmering, the lyrics are lacerating. "I told you I was trouble/You know that I'm no good," she sings on "You Know I'm No Good."
Winehouse says it's the unashamed emotionalism of the decades-old music that appeals to her.
"A lot of music now is trying to be cool and like, 'Yeah, I don't really care about you' -- a really blase attitude," she said. "I think it's much nicer to be in love, and throw yourself into it, and want to lie in the road for that person.
"It's like the difference between having a dance in the middle of the party and standing around the outside with a beer bottle trying to look cool."
She says the Shangri-Las -- the girl-group behind "Leader of the Pack" and other drama-drenched '60s singles -- "pretty much had a song for every stage of a relationship: being lonely, then finding someone, being in love with them, then breaking up with the boy, then crying about it. They've got a song for every occasion. Saw me through a fair few good and bad times, definitely."
Winehouse's good and bad times have been gleefully chronicled in the British press. The tabloids have feasted on accounts of binge-drinking, drug use and feuds with fellow musicians. She is famously blunt in her assessment of her peers, once describing Dido's sound as "background music -- the background to death" and saying of pop princess Kylie Minogue, "she's not an artist ... she's a pony."
Winehouse freely acknowledges that she likes to smoke marijuana and drink -- as her occasionally ragged live performances attest -- and has admitted she is "a terrible drunk."
She has also talked about her eating disorders and told a newspaper that she has been diagnosed as manic depressive but refuses to take medication.
"Frank," a moderate hit in Britain, was followed by a creative slump during which she broke up with her boyfriend and spent $390 a week on marijuana -- a habit she has since cut back, she says.
During the same period, she suffered from debilitating writer's block -- hence the three-year gap between "Frank" and "Back to Black."
"I had writer's block for so long," she said. "And as a writer, your self-worth is literally based on the last thing you wrote. ... I used to think, 'What happened to me?'
"At one point it had been two years since the last record and (the record company) actually said to me, 'Do you even want to make another record?' I was like, 'I swear it's coming.' I said to them, 'Once I start writing, I will write and write and write. But I just have to start it.' "
'I'm just a musician'
Veteran music journalist John Aizlewood says there is a danger Winehouse's tabloid image will overshadow her music. But he thinks her recent, sober concert appearances suggest she is aware of the risk.
"I think she is trying to put the bacchanalian, debauched Amy Winehouse behind her," Aizlewood said.
Speaking to The Associated Press between magazine cover shoots in a north London photo studio, Winehouse is strikingly -- almost disappointingly -- articulate, professional and friendly, the opposite of her tabloid image.
The daughter of a taxi driver father and pharmacist mother, she grew up in the London suburbs and attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School, a factory for British music and acting moppets. She also went to the Brit School -- a performing arts academy in the "Fame" mold -- and originally was signed to "American Idol" creator Simon Fuller's 19 Management.
But she says she never sought fame.
"I'm so lucky to get to do music that I like, but I think the record company knows that I wouldn't kill myself if I didn't sell 2 million records," she said.
"When I was 18, I wasn't banging their door down. I didn't go out looking to be famous. I'm just a musician."
If it all went sour, "I would pack this in and go and be a waitress or a housewife."
Now, however, Winehouse is eager to go back into the studio to work on new material. Before that, there's the album's U.S. release and a handful of high-profile stateside dates.
Aizlewood thinks Winehouse's "fantastic soul voice" has a chance of winning over Americans.
"A lot of British bands fail in America because they give America something Americans do better -- that's why most British hip-hop has failed," he said. "But they won't have come across anything quite like Amy Winehouse."
At home there's the continuing media scrutiny, recently centering on drug use, her weight loss and an alleged feud with singer Lily Allen.
Winehouse insists she is not bothered by the attention -- "It's not nice, but it comes with the job." But it clearly rankles. She says the tabloids do not tend to run pictures of her on the many times when she is sober and calm.
"I had my eyes closed there," she tells an AP photographer snapping her picture. "You can sell that one to the tabloids and say I was drunk."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.