Enjoy!

http://www.apple.com/trailers/newline/freddy_vs_jason/fvj_medium.html

What's on TV: Tuesday

--'24' wraps up season: As the clock ticks away on real-time espionage drama 24, which caps its second season on Fox (9 ET/PT), things are looking grim. Having survived torture and repeatedly cheated death, super-agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) has one hour to stop a world war and reinstate a president.

--Buffy the Vampire Slayer (UPN, tonight, 8 ET/PT) ends its seven-season run with a rousing hour that accomplishes most everything you could ask of a finale. Joss Whedon, Buffy's ingenious creator, has wrapped up his series in a way that brings the story to a satisfying conclusion without closing off future options. There are tears and laughs, a lesson in choices and empowerment, and a sense that a personal journey has reached completion. Buffy may not have changed the world, but it made one small, electronic part of it a much better place.

--Still, the demons Buffy has faced are nothing compared to the power aligned against her tonight: The finals of American Idol (Fox, 8 p.m. ET/PT). My advice? Watch Buffy live and tape Idol, which is always far better when you can fast-forward to the singing center.

--Get your recording devices ready, because it's a tough night. WB offers the season finale of Gilmore Girls (WB, 8 ET/PT). Rory thinks her college plans are set, but a surprise is in store.

--NYPD Blue (ABC, 10 ET/PT) ends its 10th season with Andy and Connie's wedding. Or does it? You'll have to watch.

Enjoy whatever you watch and don't tell me a thing!

STONED TEMPLE PILOT?

Burbank police arresting Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland Sunday on investigation of drug possession after allegedly finding narcotics in his car during an early morning traffic stop. Weiland's out on $10,000 bail.

MUTANT HOST

X2 star Hugh Jackman tapped to emcee the 57th Annual Tony Awards, airing live from Radio City Music Hall on CBS on June 8.

MORE HARPO

As expected, Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey signing a new deal with King World Productions to continue as host and producer of The Oprah Winfrey Show through 2008.

'Matrix' Has Best-Ever Opening for R Film

LOS ANGELES - Hordes of fans took another trip down the rabbit hole with Neo, Trinity and the other characters of "The Matrix Reloaded," giving the sequel the highest opening weekend gross of any R-rated film on record.

The Warner Bros. sequel to 1999's "The Matrix" took in an estimated $93.3 million from Friday through Sunday, capturing 59.8 percent of the total gross of the weekend's top 12 films, according to studio estimates.

"Matrix Reloaded" made mincemeat out of the previous R-rated weekend record holder, 2001's "Hannibal," which brought in $58 million. "Matrix Reloaded" opened in limited previews Wednesday night, and its total for all five days was estimated at $135.8 million.

"Matrix Reloaded" becomes the second-highest first weekend grossing film of all time, behind last year's PG-13-rated "Spider-Man," which took in $114.8 million its opening weekend. "Matrix Reloaded" was rated R for violence and some sexuality.

Overall, however, Hollywood revenues were down, with the top 12 movies grossing $162.6 million, off 4 percent compared to the same weekend last year.

"Matrix Reloaded" audiences were split almost evenly between those under and over 25, and many theater owners reported a large number of families seeing the film, according to Warner Bros. research.

"You had a whole legion of fans under 17 whose parents were obviously willing to take them to see this movie," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations Co. "You can almost call this an R-rated family film."

"This just shows that ratings matter to a point, but if people want to see the movie, they're going to see the movie," Dergarabedian said.

The film is the second of a trilogy, which will wrap up in November with "The Matrix Revolutions."

Warner Bros. held back on a major television ad campaign for the film, relying instead on word of mouth from the releases of the DVD of "The Matrix," of a video game based on the films and of a series of animated shorts.

"The Matrix Reloaded" easily knocked its sci-fi rival, "X2: X-Men United," into third place. "X2" took in $17.1 million for a total three-week take of $174 million.

A surprise was the resilience of the Eddie Murphy family comedy "Daddy Day Care," which only slipped 30 percent at the box office in its second week and retained its second-place showing with a three-day gross of $19.2 million, for a three-week total of $51.4 million.

"To be wedged between these two monsters and hold as well as we did makes it that much better," said Rory Bruer, Sony head of distribution.

Here are the ticket sale totals for Friday through Sunday at North American theaters, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc..

1. "The Matrix Reloaded," $93.3 million.
2. "Daddy Day Care," $19.2 million.
3. "X2: X-Men United," $17.1 million.
4. "Down With Love." $7.6 million.
5. "The Lizzie McGuire Movie," $4.5 million.
6. "Anger Management," $3.6 million.
7. "Identity," $3.4 million.
8. "Holes," $3 million.
9. "A Mighty Wind," $1.7 million.
10. "Bend It Like Beckham," $1.5 million

'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' Bites the Dust

SANTA MONICA, Calif. - Apocalypse? Like, that is so 1997. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" has thwarted the end of the world so many times since then, it's no longer cool.

The comedy-horror series, about a petite young woman with a penchant for Valley Girl-speech and the supernatural power to karate-kick demons back into the netherworld, will finally rest in peace.

The finale (8 p.m. EDT Tuesday on UPN) pits Buffy against a shape-shifting evil known as The First. Some will live, some will die, perhaps evil will be foiled once more, but then again ... this is the end, right? And Buffy has died before — twice.

Although it was her decision to leave, star Sarah Michelle Gellar said it was hard to say goodbye to the role that made her famous.

"The whole time I kept thinking, 'When am I going to cry?'" she recalled about filming her last scene in the desert outside Los Angeles. "I remember when it finally came it was like getting hit with a brick wall."

Series creator Joss Whedon developed the show from his script for a 1992 movie that starred Kristy Swanson as the perky vampire hunter. The idea for a feminist warrior came to him in 1987 after witnessing a few too many horror-flick cliches.

"It's an old story, but it's true one," Whedon said in April, during a break on his second-to-last day of directing the finale. "I was watching a bunch of horror movies and there was the petite ditzy blonde who got cornered in the alley and killed, and I got tired of it. I felt sorry for her and wanted her to have a champion."

The "Buffy" series became a surprise hit for the WB network when it debuted midseason in 1997 with Gellar, then 18, wielding the wooden stakes. The show jumped to the UPN network two years ago.

Set in the fictional California town of Sunnydale, "Buffy" depicted high school as a literal Hell: the building sat over a gateway to the satanic inferno, attracting monsters like truckers to a highway rest stop.

Far from being the popular girl in school, Buffy's mysterious night-prowling made her seem like a weirdo to classmates.

Her only friends were the wallflower Willow (Alyson Hannigan), who eventually discoverd her lesbian sexuality; the handsome geek Xander (Nicholas Brendon), and the tweed-jacketed British librarian Giles (Anthony Stewart Head), who doubled as her Watcher, an occult-researcher and fight trainer.

Head said he and Whedon still plan to do a TV movie called "Ripper" based on his character's past as a demon conjurer, although neither is sure when that will happen.

Buffy's romances with the bad-boy bloodsucker Spike (James Marsters) and Angel (David Boreanaz), the vampire cursed with a soul to make him regret his monstrous past, were explorations of how otherwise smart, strong women become embroiled in bad relationships, Whedon said.

When Buffy and Angel made love in the second season, that moment of "perfect happiness" released his curse, eradicated his soul and turned him evil again. "That's the ultimate metaphor," Gellar said. "You sleep with a guy and he turns bad on you."

Her tangles with Spike ventured into abusive territory, according to Marsters, who said the finale may help reconcile his character's light and dark sides. "It's at least the chance to show that he cares to try to redeem himself. I don't know if you CAN redeem yourself after doing what he did all of those hundreds of years," Marsters said.

Over the years, Buffy has encountered a song-and-dance demon in the musical episode "Once More With Feeling," and ghostly voice-stealers in the acclaimed silent installment "Hush."

One demon even became a show regular: Anya (Emma Caulfield) was a ghoul who specializes in punishing unfaithful men — until she lost her power, became human and swooned for Xander only to be dumped by him on their wedding day.

In the fifth season, Buffy was implanted with the memory that she has a little sister, Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg), who was created by magical monks to house a mystical ball of energy that opened the world to evil gods and ... well, the show was full of breathlessly complex lore like that.

Comedy has been key to humanizing gothic cataclysms. One example: Buffy locked in battle with the vampire archvillain, The Master, looks curiously at his menacing, bloodstained lips and observes: "You have fruit-punch mouth."

While rumors abounded about discord between Gellar and others on the show over her decision to leave, Whedon said he had long planned this season as the last.

When Gellar made her announcement in a March issue of Entertainment Weekly, she said there was still the possibility that "Buffy" could continue without her under a new title. That plan was eventually scrapped, and if there were hard feelings about Gellar's public resignation most of her co-stars now agree it's time to move on.

"I'm happy. It's a good time for it to end. It's going to be sad, but it would be sad no matter what," said Hannigan, who met her fiance, Alexis Denisof, on "Buffy" when he costarred as a fussy Watcher overseeing Giles. Denisof currently stars with Boreanaz on the WB's "Angel" spin-off, which Marsters will join next season.

Now the phony graveyard in the "Buffy" studio parking lot has been plowed under, the ornate goat-faced seal to the Hellmouth has been rolled away, and the last slain vampire has been dusted by the special-effects department.

Whedon said in coming years he'd like to make a "Buffy" movie, although Gellar said she's not interested — at least for now.

"Never say never," she added — proof that nothing in the Buffy realm is ever dead for sure.

Kidman Says She'd Drop Acting if She Met Mr. Right

CANNES, France (Reuters) - Oscar-winning actress Nicole Kidman may be the current darling of Hollywood but she would be happy to give up the showbiz lifestyle to settle down with the right man. "I probably won't do this for the rest of my life," Kidman told a news conference on her new film "Dogville," a favorite to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes festival this year.

"There are other things to do that interest me and I think that when I fall in love, that's when I will stop and settle down," said Kidman, 35, glowing in a black evening gown.

She made no reference to her divorce from celluloid pin-up Tom Cruise, who now dates Spanish actress Penelope Cruz.

Cruz, without Cruise, was in Cannes last week ago to promote "Fanfan la Tulipe," a fluffy costume drama that couldn't be more different from Dogville and was slated by critics.

Dogville, on the other hand, the latest epic from maverick Danish director Lars von Trier, is set to win more plaudits for the alabaster-skinned Kidman, who has gone from an actress best known as being Mrs Tom Cruise to an acclaimed artist.

Asked how she dealt with fame, Kidman said: "It's very important to remember where you're at and where you've come from. It's surreal, but it's important to still jump on the hotel bed and go 'oh my God, I'm in the Hotel du Cap."'

Fresh from her Oscar win for her portrayal of suicidal author Virginia Woolfe, Kidman shines in Dogville as a fragile woman hiding from gangsters in a tiny, Rocky Mountain town.

The role involves her at one point wearing an iron dog collar attached to a chain, a bell and a heavy iron wheel, and bearing the brunt of the lust of every man in the town.

"The collar was not discussed on the phone," Kidman joked. "I saw it when I arrived, and I had a pretty strong reaction."

Praised for her high kicks and trapeze stunts in "Moulin Rouge," Kidman is now planning a remake of "The Stepford Wives" followed by two more films with Von Trier.

But she has no intention of letting the job burn her out.

"I love being an actor. But I would hope that I have many other things than this life ahead of me," Kidman said.

"This kind of life is a burn-out. You find yourself saying 'I can't do this for ever'. It will finish in its own time."

Liverpool Gears Up for McCartney Homecoming

LIVERPOOL, England (Reuters) - Paul McCartney fans said on Monday they were itching to welcome him home next month for his first major solo concert in his northern England home town since 1990.

The Liverpool-born musician, who made his name as one quarter of 1960s rock and roll phenomenon the Beatles, will play the 90th and final gig of his "Back in the World" tour to 30,000 fans on the banks of the city's River Mersey on June 1.

One fan who is well aware of the value of his concert ticket is Eddie Porter, who for 24 years has been a guide on the "Magical Mystery Tour" bus that shuttles tourists to Liverpool's many sites of Beatles interest.

"Put it this way: you can buy me love, but you can't buy my ticket," he said over a beer near the Cavern Club, where the Beatles performed nearly 300 times.

McCartney had 17 number one hits in Britain with the group.

"They were a unique band, they were teenagers talking to teenagers. When they played, your whole body could feel the heat of the music," Porter said.

Since the band split in 1970, McCartney has had further success with the group Wings and as a solo artist.

In all, some two million people will have seen his latest tour, which started in California in April 2002. It has made McCartney the world's highest earning celebrity and will have taken him through more than 15 countries including concerts in Rome's Colosseum and Moscow's Red Square.

Liverpool city council said tickets for the final date sold out in four hours.

Bob Scott, head of Liverpool's bid to become a European city of culture, said: "It's probably the biggest concert to come to Liverpool in a generation and will be one of the most memorable in Britain this year."

McCartney's tour crew will erect a 70-foot (20-meter) stage in an open-air arena that will buzz to the sound of more than 30 solo hits and Beatles classics like "Hey Jude," "Yesterday" and "Let it Be."

'Matrix' Actor Marcus Chong Sues Over Tank Role

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actor Marcus Chong has sued the makers of "The Matrix" for allegedly reneging on a promise to recast him as a freedom fighter in the 1999 sci-fi thriller's two sequels.

The lawsuit, filed on Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court, accuses Warner Bros. and parent company AOL Time Warner and the film's producers of breaching their 1998 oral agreement and a 2000 contract to revive his character, Tank, in the two sequels, and of slandering him.

Chong, 35, also accused the filmmakers of "intentionally publishing numerous false statements ... that he was a terrorist," and of conspiring to blackball him in Hollywood.

A bail receipt document posted on a fan Web site shows that Chong was arrested on Oct. 18, 2000 for allegedly making threats -- five days after his salary negotiations with the studio collapsed.

Film industry sources said the actor made repeated phone calls of a harassing nature to the filmmakers after his salary demands were not met. Tank was subsequently written out of the sequels and replaced with a character named Link.

A Warner Bros. spokesman and a spokeswoman for writer-directors Andy and Larry Wachowski declined to comment on the pending litigation.

Chong's attorney could not be reached for comment.

Released last week, "The Matrix Reloaded" enjoyed first weekend box office sales of $93.3 million -- higher than any R-rated film in U.S. history and No. 2 among all releases.

"The Matrix Reloaded" stars Keanu Reeves as a resistance fighter who battles an army of machines that seek to take control of the last human city, Zion. It will be followed in November by a third movie, "The Matrix Revolutions."

'The Bachelor' Beats Hitler in TV Ratings

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - In a ratings battle between love and hate, love conquered all. Even Hitler.

The two-hour finale of ABC's reality romance hit "The Bachelor" was the big winner Sunday in the ratings race for young adult viewers, while the first half of a CBS miniseries about Hitler finished third, according to preliminary figures from Nielsen Media Research.

"The Bachelor" finale, in which winery executive Andrew Firestone, great-grandson of the tire tycoon, proposed to account executive Jennifer Schefft, scored a 7.7 rating for adults under 50, the viewer group most coveted by advertisers.

That was enough to help ABC to a first-place finish in the 18-to-49 demographic for the final Sunday of the TV season.

The show averaged 15 million viewers overall, nearly tied for its two-hour time period with back-to-back telecasts of the season's last two episodes of NBC's "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," which ranked No. 2 in adults 18 to 49.

Part one of the CBS miniseries "Hitler: the Rise of Evil," starring Scottish actor Robert Carlyle as the Fuehrer, landed in third place for the 9-to-11 p.m. slot in both total viewers and young adults (13.6 million, l3.9 rating).

If the one-hour season swan song of Fox sitcom "Malcolm in the Middle" were counted in the mix (Fox lacks a network program for the 10 o'clock hour), the Hitler miniseries would fall to fourth place.

'Matrix' Producer Dismisses Violent Links

LONDON (Reuters) - The producer of the "Matrix" films reminded fans on Monday that the movies were just fantasy, following a spate of stories in the United States linking it with violent behavior.

"I only can comment that 15 million people have seen the movie and I don't know what the links are," producer Joel Silver told a news conference in London alongside its lead actors Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne.

"The Matrix Reloaded," one of the most-anticipated sequels in film history, opened to record numbers in North America over the weekend and is expected to whip up equal excitement when it his British screens nationwide on Friday.

But a handful of fans in the United States have apparently taken their fascination with the sci-fi smash a step too far by acting out real-life crimes to escape the Matrix -- a computer-generated world controlled by machines.

"It's a wonderful fantasy story that doesn't take place in the real world, so I can't comment on what makes people do what they do," he said.

The Washington Post reported over the weekend that the movie was recently invoked by an Ohio woman and a man in San Francisco who each killed their landlord but pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

It quoted producers Warner Bros. as saying in a statement: "Any attempt to link these crimes with a motion picture or any other art form is disturbing and irresponsible."

The first "Matrix" became a cult classic in 1999, grossing almost $460 million worldwide and winning four Oscars.

The sequel continues the kung-fu battle against machines that have taken over a post-apocalyptic earth and harvest humans in a computer-generated world known as "The Matrix."

Beyond its wild action scenes and dazzling special effects, the movies have captivated fans by twisting reality in circles until it disappears altogether.

But Fishburne, who plays sunglasses-wearing Morpheus, one of the film's heroes, told fans to make the ultimate distinction:

"There is no matrix, there is only what is real," he said.