New Michelle Branch for June

Singer Michelle Branch says that her new album now has a drop date of June 10. "It's a lot later than we thought, but we need to set up in time," said Branch.

"Videos, photo shoots, and I need a slight break before being on the road again."

After the album's release, Branch will join the Dixie Chicks on tour beginning June 19.

" The Nutty Professor" is Jerry's fave

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Jerry Lewis says he wants to be remembered for the 1963 film "The Nutty Professor," which he considers the crowning achievement of his show business career.

"You know, every director in the history of cinema prays for the one work," said the 76-year-old Lewis in an interview published in The Kansas City Star. "And if you get the one work, you can sit with your grandchildren and tell them you did something substantial. And I've had mine --'The Nutty Professor.' That's the one."

Lewis directed and starred in the movie, which he says was a critical and box-office success. "I mean, I did almost $31 million when tickets were a quarter," he said.

He was executive producer of a 1996 remake of the film starring Eddie Murphy.

Lewis, who co-starred with Dean Martin in more than a dozen comedy classics in the 1950s, has been suffering from chronic back pain resulting from his many pratfalls and pulmonary fibrosis, a lung problem diagnosed several years ago.

There Is A Hidden Feature On "The Ring"

On the DVD of the unsettling horror movie 'The Ring' you can find a hidden feature that is just as unsettling, so make sure to check it out.

Insert the DVD in your player and wait until the Main Menu comes up. Now press the 'Up' arrow key on your remote control and the cursor will disappear. If you press the 'Enter' key now on your remote control you will get to see the entire footage of the deadly videotape from the movie. Once it is over, you will be returned to the Main Menu and a few seconds later the phone will ring...

Madonna announces track listing

Madonna has announced the track listing for her upcoming album, "American Life."

Madonna's official web site revealed the album's songs, which are as follows:

"American Life"
"Hollywood"
"I'm So Stupid"
"Love Profusion"
"Nobody Knows Me"
"Nothing Fails"
"Intervention"
"The Process"
"Mother and Father"
"Die Another Day"
"Easy Ride"

The new album, which comes out April 22 in the U.S. and Canada, is the follow-up to 2000's "Music." The first single is the title track, "American Life."

The as-yet unseen video for the song, directed by Jonas Akerland (U2, Prodigy), is already causing controversy because of its anti-war message which many see as being anti-American.

However, Madonna disagrees and said via her web site: "I feel lucky to be an American citizen for many reasons -- one of which is the right to express myself freely, especially in my work."

Madonna also added that she is neither "anti-Bush," nor "pro-Iraq." She said that she is "pro-peace."

"I have written a song and created a video which expresses my feelings about our culture and values and the illusions of what many people believe is the American dream -- the perfect life," she said.

Bellucci answers siren call

LOS ANGELES — Bruce Willis knows who Monica Bellucci is. "She's a babe," he says of his Tears of the Sun co-star who, while unknown here, is Europe's reigning female star.

She won't be "Monica who?" for long. A deglamorized Bellucci has her first major English-language role Friday in Tears, as a doctor imperiled by a Nigerian uprising.

America will be seeing much more of the cinematic siren this year.

In fact in Irreversible, which is probably the most controversial film she'll ever make, nearly all of Bellucci is on view. The French-language hit also opens Friday in New York and Los Angeles, before expanding into limited release around North America.

And in May, the Italian actress, 34, will play the black-leather-clad Persephone in The Matrix Reloaded, the first of the two new Matrix movies. "She's dangerous. She's mysterious, and she has a sense of humor too," says the actress who, like the rest of the cast, has been sworn to secrecy about the films.

Next comes her Mary Magdalene in Mel Gibson's already buzzed-about The Passion, a retelling in explicitly gory detail of the final 12 hours in the life of Jesus.

But even as the Italian star discussed Tears with journalists last week, it was Irreversible that dominated conversation. Bold and brutal as it unreels in reverse (like Memento), Gaspar Noe's film depicts first a nauseating revenge killing in a gay sex club and then Bellucci's equally disturbing and explicit anal rape in a Parisian pedestrian tunnel.

Why do something so explicitly violent?

Bellucci joked, "Because I'm crazy."

Actually, she's anything but. She has reached her slightly stratospheric perch after one modest international hit, Malèna , the 2000 Italian import in which she played a sexy wife beset by men and misfortune during World War II.

How does she explain her rapid rise?

"I have no clue, as you say," says Bellucci, who is married to Vincent Cassell, her Irreversible co-star.

"Through Malèna a year-and-a-half ago, I met the Wachowskis (Andy and Larry, the brothers behind the Matrix films) and Bruce and Antoine (Fuqua, Tears' director) and then Mel Gibson, and so it's happened so fast. I've turned down other films," she points out.

"I don't want to make an American movie just because it's American. I want to make movies in Europe because it's my culture, and I'm lucky to be Italian and working in Italy and France and America. Here you have great directors."

Now that Irreversible has achieved its succès de scandale, it might be easy to think of Bellucci as consciously following another Italian's path from sex symbol to serious actress: Sophia Loren, who won the 1961 best-actress Oscar for Two Women, playing an Italian mother raped by soldiers during WWII. "Call it 'Two Women 2003,' " Bellucci says with a laugh.

"I don't think it's possible to compare. If today I do movies, it's because growing up I dreamed of Sophia and Gina Lollobrigida and Monica Vitti and Anna Magnani, those incredible actresses who made the Italian cinema, but I'm so far from them. When they came to America, they were famous because of Italian movies, and today it's not like that anymore. If you want to make a career, you have to go to France or America. I was lucky."

Now Bellucci must prove that her luck is, well, irreversible.

'Futurama' hits DVD, but show comes to close

Matt Groening is a proud papa. The Simpsons just celebrated its 300th episode, but he's especially pleased to see his other animated child, Futurama, get its day in the sun.

A first-season DVD will be out March 25 and a few fresh episodes remain to run on Fox, even though the sci-fi satire has ended production.

As The Simpsons heads toward its 15th season, Futurama faces early retirement because of inconsistent scheduling and, Groening says, a lack of promotion. The Emmy-winning Futurama, which premiered in 1999, follows Fry (Billy West), a pizza-delivery guy who gets frozen and thaws out 1,000 years later. He goes to work for a futuristic delivery service, joining Leela (Katey Sagal), a one-eyed alien, and Bender (John DiMaggio), a robot with human frailties.

The Fox Home Entertainment DVD includes commentary on the first 13 episodes by Groening, executive producer David X. Cohen, West and DiMaggio.

"They're wild parties, these commentaries," Groening says. "Billy and John sing along with the theme and make up their own lyrics and talk in their characters' voices."

Groening says the last of Futurama's 72 episodes will provide some closure, but he wishes the show could have continued: "We had so many more stories we were eager to tell."

He won't make comparisons between his animated progeny, except for one nod to Futurama: "It's definitely better animated."

R-rated films are sent to back of ticket line

LAS VEGAS — Last year was a record-breaker at the movies, both in ticket sales and attendance. And, for the first time in nearly 30 years, R-rated fare is clearly "out."

Of the top 20 films released in 2002, not one was rated R. 8 Mile, the Eminem movie, just missed at No. 21.

"Family product sells, and R-rated product does not," said John Fithian, head of the National Association of Theatre Owners, at ShoWest, the industry's largest trade show for theater operators. The show runs here through Thursday.

"For theater operators, particularly those that operate in the middle of America, this is a very important part of our success," Fithian says. "Over and over again, we say that there are too many R-rated pictures made based on what they can generate in box office."

The core moviegoing audience is one reason. According to statistics released Tuesday by the Motion Picture Association of America:
* Ages 12 to 29 comprise about 50% of admissions.
* 30 to 49 account for 32%.
* 50 and over, 17%.

That 12-to-29 group has MPAA president Jack Valenti vexed.

College students, in particular, are using the high-speed capabilities of their school's Internet systems to download not only free music but also free movies, representing a "menace" to the future of the movie business.

"I've spoken now at a number of universities," Valenti says, asking students to stop downloading movies and urging universities to enforce bans on the practice. "This is more than just an economic problem or a legal problem or a constitutional problem. It is a moral problem. ... If you have young kids 18 to 23 making sure that moral compact is in a state of decay, then this country is in pretty sad shape."

The answer for the industry, he says, will be encrypting a movie from the start, preventing copies from being made. "I'm absolutely, sublimely confident we can do it."

Pioneer Talk Show Host Paar Hospitalized

GREENWICH, Conn. - Late-night television pioneer Jack Paar has been admitted to a Connecticut hospital for an undisclosed illness.

"I can confirm he is a patient and he is in fair condition," said George Pawlush, director of public relations at Greenwich Hospital.

USA Today reported Wednesday that Paar had suffered a stroke over the weekend.

Pawlush said Wednesday that Paar had been in the hospital for about 10 days, but could not disclose any other information.

Paar, 84, had quadruple bypass surgery in 1999.

He became host of NBC's "The Tonight Show" in 1957. He announced that he was leaving the show in February 1960, but a month later, the network managed to lure him back. Paar left in 1962. Johnny Carson subsequently took over.

"The Jack Paar Program," a prime-time variety show, ran from September 1962 until '65.

Singer Jones Sees Sales Bump After Grammys

NEW YORK - Talk about a Grammy sales bump — Norah Jones' debut album, "Come Away With Me," sold 621,000 copies after her Grammy sweep, almost 500,000 more than the week before — the biggest post-Grammy sales spike ever, according to her record company.

Jones' disc, which won eight Grammys, including album of the year, is the No. 1 album in the country, according to figures released Wednesday.

Its sales rose 331 percent, according to EMI Recorded Music, which owns her label, Blue Note Records. The previous week, the disc had sold about 144,000 copies.

Jones' huge sales leap knocked R. Kelly off the top of the charts. His "Chocolate Factory" placed at No. 3, while rapper 50 Cent moved from No. 3 to No. 2 with "Get Rich or Die Tryin'."

Jones, who also won best new artist, performed "Don't Know Why," which won record and song of the year, on the Feb. 23 Grammy broadcast.

So far, the 23-year-old pop-jazz singer's album has sold 4.2 million. Most in the industry didn't expect it to sell more than 100,000 when it was released in February 2002.

Other Grammy-winning and nominated artists experienced a sales increase, though not as significant as Jones' bump. The Dixie Chicks, whose "Home" won three Grammys, saw album sales rise from 127,000 the previous week to 202,000, placing the disc at No. 4; and John Mayer, who won the best pop male vocal award, sold 97,000 copies of "Room for Squares," compared with 45,000 the previous week. It placed at No. 8.

Bruce Springsteen, who won three Grammys, saw his disc rise from No. 129 on the charts to No. 27. "The Rising" sold 36,000, compared with 11,000 the previous week.

Hussein Translator on CBS Used Fake Accent-Report

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The man who spoke Saddam Hussein's words in English during a CBS interview with Dan Rather late last month was an actor using a fake Arabic accent, the Los Angeles Times reported on Wednesday.

The paper said Steve Winfield is a member of the Screen Actors Guild who bills himself on a Web site called "Fabulous Voices" as an expert in putting on foreign accents.

CBS said the network vouched 100 percent for the accuracy of its translation which was read on air in English in a voice compatible "with the piece.

In a statement the network said, "CBS News employed three independent and respected Arabic translators to provide a 100 percent accurate translation of the interview." The network added that a fourth person recorded the actual audio in a voice compatible "with the piece."

The statement added, "The '60 Minutes II' report conveyed a fully accurate translation of the interview that was in complete compliance with CBS News standards."

The White House had criticized CBS for what it said was the network's refusal to let the Bush administration rebut "irresponsible statements," propaganda and lies by Hussein during the interview.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said CBS would allow a response only by President Bush himself.

CBS denied that charge and said it would accept an appearance on '60 Minutes II' by the president, vice president or secretary of state.