24: Season Two Headed to DVD

Fox has announced details of the second season DVD of 24. The seven-disc set will retail for $69.88 and be released on September 23. It includes all 24 episodes, 44 deleted scenes, alternate endings, commentaries, and assorted making-of featurettes.

Death of Iconic Actress Hepburn Draws Eulogies

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The death of Katharine Hepburn, the first lady of American cinema who won a record four best actress Oscars, drew eulogies to the auburn-haired beauty known for her fiercely independent spirit.

Hepburn, who starred in classics such as "The African Queen" and who played opposite a galaxy of leading men including Spencer Tracy and Humphrey Bogart, died on Sunday at her home in Connecticut aged 96 "surrounded by loved ones."

President Bush led tributes to the screen siren. "Katharine Hepburn delighted audiences with her unique talent for more than six decades. She was known for her intelligence and wit and will be remembered as one of the nation's artistic treasures," a statement from the president said.

Hepburn, whose health had been in decline for some time and had not spoken for several days, passed away peacefully, said her brother-in-law Ellsworth Grant.

"She's the greatest actress of her age and with her passing that whole galaxy of great movie stars has ended," Grant, who saw Hepburn just before she died, told Reuters, adding the cause of her death was "simply complications from old age."

Hepburn won best actress Oscar four times -- in 1933 for "Morning Glory," 1967 for "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," 1968 for "The Lion in Winter" and in 1981 for "On Golden Pond."

Irreverent and feisty, Hepburn was voted America's most admired woman in a 1985 Ladies Home Journal survey. Her trademarks: high cheekbones, her hair and a voice redolent of her upper-class New England origins.

Monday's Washington Post spoke of her "breathtaking talent and unsurpassed durability."

PUT WOMEN IN PANTS

"She is the person who put women in pants, literally and figuratively," her biographer, Christopher Andersen, told Reuters in one interview. "She is the greatest star, the greatest actress, that Hollywood has ever produced."

The actress did not escape criticism. Her performances were sometimes called cold. Dorothy Parker famously said of Hepburn that she displayed "the gamut of emotions from A to B."

Other Hepburn classics included "Little Women," "The Philadelphia Story," "A Bill of Divorcement," "Adam's Rib," "State of the Union" and "Long Day's Journey Into Night."

She acted with James Stewart, John Wayne and Henry Fonda. But it is with Tracy that her name will be forever linked.

Hepburn made nine films with Tracy, and for 27 years was the "other woman" in his life. Tracy, a Roman Catholic, would not divorce his wife. Hepburn once said she loved Tracy but did not remember if he had ever told her he loved her.

She had a 1930s affair with billionaire Howard Hughes, but recounted in her 1991 biography "Me" that she never loved him.

Hartford, Connecticut native Hepburn in late 1996 gave up her New York townhouse that she had kept since the 1930s. She retreated to a family mansion in Fenwick, a smart borough in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, on Long Island Sound.

There she lived a reclusive life and was rarely seen in public. Friends said she suffered from short-term memory loss, but it was not clear if she had Alzheimer's Disease.
 
Despite her carefully guarded privacy, Hepburn surprised the world in March of 2000 -- two months before her 93rd birthday -- when she told a New York newspaper she was fine.

SUMMER SHOWDOWN

What will this summer's anthem be?

The season may be just eight days old, but the frontrunner is Beyonce Knowles' Staxx-influenced debut single, "Crazy in Love."

"It's all about Beyonce," says fan and fitness instructor Donell Redd. "She's got body, she's got booty and she can sing."

Though the single - featuring her boyfriend Jay-Z - has only been out for six weeks, it's everywhere - pumping out of cars, boomboxes and nightclubs. "The beat is hot, the lyric is good and it's something that gets you moving," says Charles Brown, who works at Tower Records downtown.

"Crazy in Love" has all the requirements of a summer anthem: it's relentlessly upbeat (the crescendo never lets up), it's about lust (despite the title), and has the same raw, sexy club appeal that made Nelly's "Hot in Herre" the unofficial summer anthem of 2002.

Still, the former Destiny's Child diva faces much in the way competition.

Two summers ago, Knowles and her Destiny's Child cohorts scored summer anthem status with "Independent Women Pt. 2" off the "Charlie's Angels" soundtrack; this summer, punk-pop princess Pink has a contender with her single, "Feel Good Time," from the soundtrack to "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle."

Also in the running: Joe Budden's "Pump It Up" and Sean Paul's dance-hall hit "Get Busy" - like Knowles', both can be heard pumping out of cars at all hours.

" 'Get Busy' certainly has the right feel," says Sean Ross, editor in chief of Airplay Monitor. "But it was a few weeks too early to really be a summer anthem."

Ross, however, thinks that "the timing is right for Lil' Kim's 'Magic Stick,' [featuring 50 Cent] and for Lumidee's 'Never Leave You - Uh Ooh, Uh Oooh!' " And Z100's Romeo says that reggae-inspired tunes like "Get Busy" and "Never Leave You" are always way more popular in New York City than anywhere else in the country.

Fanny Pack, an all-girl teenage trio from New York, has one edge: so far, theirs is the only single of the summer that's pure novelty. Their obscenely hilarious "Camel Toe" - an ode to the dangers women face when they wear their pants or shorts too tightly - is a huge hit. It may be too huge - Airplay's Ross thinks that it's already in danger of being played out.

And then there are the wild cards. Z100's Romeo thinks that Junior Senior's effervescent "Move Your Feet," which is just beginning to get airplay, is "a potential big hit."

Then there's the unstoppable 50 Cent. If it hadn't been released two months ago, his dance track "In Da Club" would have undoubtedly fought it out with Knowles' "Crazy in Love" for summer supremacy.

Still he's got some other beats in the running: "If I Can't" is quickly climbing Billboard's hot R&B/Hip-Hop singles charts, and his mellower "21 Questions" is currently at the top of Billboards Hot 100, which ranks singles based on airplay and sales.

"Anything he puts out is gold," says Ross. But "21 Questions" may be too much of a lyrical drag - 50 asks his girlfriend, if she'd still love him if he were in jail- to qualify as a frothy, infectious summer anthem.

Ultimately, says Romeo, a true summer hit will make you want to do only two things: "take your top down if you have a convertible, and crank up [the radio] on the way to the Jersey Shore or the Hamptons."

And maybe fall in love - or lust.

Nobody Likes Avril Lavigne

Hilarie Burton, an MTV VJ, said of Avril Lavigne in the August 2003 issue of CosmoGirl: "Nobody wants to interview Avril Lavigne. I haven't met a single person who likes her. We wanted her to come on TRL, and as a dare, we wanted her to dress really girlie. So I'm standing there, and my boss says to Avril, 'We'll just put you in some of Hilarie's heels and skirts-you know, you guys are like the same size.' And she looks at me, and she goes, 'I don't wear that sh*t!' And I'm like, 'Hell no. No you don't.' If you look at her, you'd think she's in a band like Rancid. But she's not. I don't like when this girl is talking about punk music, and she doesn't know a thing about it. And when she came on MTV for New Year's Eve, she was just bossing people around. And she's not good to her fans. She makes fun of posers and says, 'I hate people who are posers.' Except all of her fans dress just like her. They're all posers. I think she's very apathetic, and for someone in her postion, that's an irresponsible thing to be."

Dido Hoists 'Flag' For Sophomore Disc

Uberbabe Dido will follow up her wildly successful debut album, "No Angel," with "Life for Rent," due Sept. 30 from Arista. The set will be preceded by the single "White Flag," which will debut Sunday (June 29) via AOL's "First Listen" initiative and arrive July 7 at U.S. radio outlets.

"White Flag" was produced by Dido and her brother Rollo, of the band Faithless (with whom Dido has also recorded). Rollo has other production credits on the new album, which was recorded at The Church, a London recording studio owned by the Eurythmics' Dave Stewart.

The full track list for "Life for Rent" has not yet been finalized, but among the tunes expected to make the cut as "Sand in My Shoes," "This Land Is Mine" and "Mary's in India."

It has been four years since the release of "No Angel," which got a boost when eventual single "Thank You" was sampled on Eminem's hit "Stan." The debut would reach a peak of No. 4 on The Billboard 200 during 69 weeks on the chart, on its way to selling 3.8 million copies in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The album was also a huge hit internationally and in Dido's native U.K., with worldwide shipments exceeding 12 million, according to Arista.

Its Hulk's diary!

Help Hojo!

We Simpsons fans are one of a kind. One of us has actually compiled a massive archive of the show's monkey references and posted it online.

'Angels' Ascend to No. 1, 'Hulk' Tumbles

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The angels have lost a little of their kick but they can still pulverize the opposition, even if he's big and green.

"Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" debuted with $38 million, off $2.1 million from the opening numbers the first movie put up in November 2000, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The previous weekend's No. 1 movie, "The Hulk," fell to second place, free-falling 70 percent from its $62.1 million opening. "The Hulk" took in $18.4 million to squeak past the $100 million mark after 10 days in theaters.

"Finding Nemo" held up well in third place with $13.9 million. With $253.9 million in the bank, the animated adventure is on track to pass "The Matrix Reloaded" as the year's top-grossing movie.

The British fright flick "28 Days Later" lacked the huge advertising blitz of "Charlie's Angels" and "The Hulk," but it managed to take fourth place with an unexpectedly strong $9.7 million while playing in barely a third as many theaters as the big-studio movies.

Overall Hollywood revenues fell for the third straight weekend. The top 12 movies grossed an estimated $111.3 million, off 15 percent from the same weekend last year.

Summer revenues are virtually even with last year's, but domestic grosses for all of 2003 are down 3.5 percent from 2002, when the industry took in a record $9.32 billion, according to box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.

"There's a little malaise out there in the business," said Nikki Rocco, head of distribution for Universal, which released "The Hulk." "Hopefully, in the next few weeks it'll pop up again."

This week brings two eagerly awaited sequels, "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" and "Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde," plus the animated family film "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas." All three open Wednesday to get a jump on the Fourth of July weekend.

Universal executives were disappointed with second-weekend numbers for "The Hulk," though the movie still will turn a profit, Rocco said.

Adapted from Marvel Comics' "The Incredible Hulk," the movie took a more dark and dramatic approach than other recent comic-book flicks. Reviews were mixed.

Sony, which released the "Charlie's Angels" movies, hopes strong weekday business will help the sequel catch up to the first movie, which had a total gross of $125.3 million, said studio vice chairman Jeff Blake.

The movie opened strongly in some overseas markets, including Japan, where its $6.2 million take was double that of the first one, Blake said.

Both "Angels" movies star Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu in an update of the 1970s TV detective series.

Factoring in higher admission prices since 2000, "Full Throttle" sold roughly a million fewer tickets domestically than the first "Charlie's Angels."

The new movie also played more widely than the original "Charlie's Angels." The first opened in 3,037 cinemas, averaging $13,213 a theater, while "Full Throttle" debuted in 3,459 theaters for a $10,986 average.

Here are the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at North American theaters, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle," $38 million.
2. "The Hulk," $18.4 million.
3. "Finding Nemo," $13.9 million.
4. "28 Days Later," $9.7 million.
5. "Bruce Almighty," $6.2 million.
6. "2 Fast 2 Furious," $5.7 million.
7. "The Italian Job," $5.4 million.
8. "Rugrats Go Wild," $3.5 million.
9. "Hollywood Homicide," $3 million.
10. "Alex & Emma," $2.7 million.

Country Women Lose Hit Magic

NASHVILLE (Billboard) - While country music has worked hard to dismiss age-old cliches about pick-up trucks and hard drinking, the music's iron attachment to another old-fashioned notion -- the men's club -- appears to be making a comeback.

After enjoying a high profile throughout the late '90s, female country artists have become a fading presence. Chart-topping hits have been declining for at least two years, even for the format's established female stars.

"There was a time when many of the male acts had identity issues -- meaning the audience had difficulty telling one artist from another," WUSN Chicago PD Justin Case says. "The same may be true now with females. You need either a distinctive sound or a no-brainer hit song to stand out. There is a lot of sameness out there right now."

KMPS/KYCW Seattle PD Becky Brenner says, "We have been struggling to get a more passionate response to the female records we are playing. The audience seems to be much more passionate about the males in the format. A few years ago, they were more passionate about the females. I think the male audience is liking the grittier male acts and their music and the women are, too."

During the first six months of this year, female artists accounted for only four of the 34 top 10 hits on the Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart. Of those four, only Dixie Chicks managed to top the chart.

While that is not a marked evolution from the first six months of last year -- which saw five top 10s by female artists, including two No. 1s -- it is a startling change compared with the same periods in 2000 and, especially, 1998.

The first six months of 2000 brought 10 top 10 records by female artists, three of which went to No. 1. Jumping back to 1998, women scored 14 top 10s, half of which went to No. 1.

Among this week's top 20 country singles, there are only two by female artists (Shania Twain at No. 9 and Wynonna at No. 18). And it has been 15 months since a solo female topped the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart.

WHAT'S GOING ON?

So what's going on here? Label rosters seem to have plenty of female artists. New artists are being introduced all the time, and veteran hitmakers Wynonna and Patty Loveless are back on the radio with promising new singles.

Why, then, has it become so hard for women to have hits?

Among the factors cited by country radio programmers are the fallout from the Dixie Chicks' anti-war stance and radio's well-documented objections to what some programmers perceived as the pop direction of the latest albums from superstars Faith Hill and Shania Twain.

More telling, programmers also cite a lack of substantive songs being recorded by women and more interesting music coming from male acts.

Gary Overton, executive VP/GM of EMI Music Publishing in Nashville, suggests another factor. "There are not enough women in decision-making roles in this hit-making process," he says. "While there are a few female A&R people at the record labels, the number of females who are record producers, promotion and marketing execs and programmers at country radio is far overshadowed by the number of men in these positions."

CROSSOVER CROSSFIRE

"There's no mistaking the feminine void, that's for sure," WMZQ Washington, D.C., assistant PD/music director Jon Anthony says. "It could be the whole 'crossover' thing finally catching up to some of them. Those that made a deliberate attempt to find new fans outside of country music -- Faith Hill, LeAnn Rimes, Shania Twain, Lee Ann Womack -- seem to be those who are suffering most.

"The research has been consistent with these artists in that their gold catalog still tests very well," Anthony continues. "But the just aren't buying their new sound anymore.

"Martina McBride, who has repeatedly said she doesn't want to cross over, is the undisputed queen of the format right now, because she's still singing about real life and identifying with the average woman.

"The Dixie Chicks really could've been the No. 1 everything if they would just stop alienating so many fans with their bellyaching," Anthony adds. "The feminine void wouldn't be as vast if they weren't putting country radio PDs in so many sticky situations."

Meanwhile, the hot male acts have gone in the other direction, toward a more traditional sound that seems to be what the audience is craving, Anthony says.

"It feels like we're coming back toward the core and roots of the format, and the guys are running up the score on the ladies," he observes. "I hope history repeats itself, because the last time we had so many male superstars, in the early '90s, country music took off."

Keymarket Communications VP of programming Frank Bell offers another explanation. "I knew females at country radio were in trouble last year when I first saw the covers of the Faith, Shania and LeAnn Rimes CDs," he says.

"All three images were either drenched in sweat or wearing their underwear in an attempt to fulfill some 30-year-old guy's vision of what a pop star should look like. Did they not understand that their fan base -- the people who made them popular in the first place -- were adult women with a family-oriented lifestyle?

"The four biggest female country artists in recent memory are Faith, Shania, LeAnn Rimes, and the Dixie Chicks," Bell adds. "The first three all sold their souls artistically and made slick-sounding techno-pop records in an attempt to become the next Celine Dion. The Chicks made a brilliant country album, then committed the biggest PR gaffe in the music business since Milli Vanilli."

The lack of female hits has not gone unnoticed by the label community, according to Lyric Street Records senior VP of A&R Doug Howard. "However, it is not because we are not trying," he says. "I must admit that we have had a couple of misses with some of our releases, but we are confident that we have truly unique and extremely talented women making relevant music for our format."

Howard does admit concern for the fact that the country format is often guilty of embracing one type of country music "while ignoring everything else. Hopefully, we can prevent drawing lines so deep that we refuse to recognize the amazing array of country female artists in our community."

Paige Levy, senior VP of A&R at Warner Bros. Records, is not overly concerned about a lack of hits, as long as female artists continue to sell records. "While a No. 1 record would be nice, most record companies are focused on getting enough airplay to generate sales and not necessarily throwing a lot of money at a record just to win a chart position," she says.

"Established female artists such as Faith Hill, Martina McBride, Sara Evans and Shania Twain continue to sell good numbers without having a top-charting single."

THE TRUTH ABOUT MEN

The quality of female repertoire is also a concern among country music insiders.

Tonya Campos, assistant PD/music director of KZLA Los Angeles, thinks "the lack of women on the charts is simply because of a lack of good songs for females. Good material seems to be the reason that male artists that were not known a few months ago now have hit songs on the charts."

Brenner agrees that "the male artists seem to be coming up with more songs of substance and more songs with true meat. The women seem to be recording pop -- fluff songs."

Renee Bell, senior VP of A&R at RCA Label Group, adds, "I have felt since Sept. 11 that the audience wants substance. Everything that's really been hitting has been real substance songs."

The problem, Bell says, is that it has been hard in recent years to find such songs for women artists. For the past five years or so, she says, "a lot of what was being written in town was fluff." That's because prior to Sept. 11, a lot of the songs that did become hits for women were, in fact, "fluff," and songwriters tend to emulate styles that are working.

"We at EMI advise our songwriters to write what they are compelled to write," Overton defends. "Hence, sometimes the songs are passionate ballads, sometimes lighter fare. But I can assure you that we have never run short of passionate, meaningful songs to play for artists."

Other programmers agree that the dominant male trend is part of a format cycle, and some agree with Bell that it's one that might be cycling back in the near future.

Not long ago, Hill, McBride, Twain, Wynonna, Trisha Yearwood, Reba McEntire, Deana Carter, Pam Tillis and others were dominating the music scene, Cumulus Broadcasting regional operations manager Tim Roberts says. "I remember really concentrating on editing music logs to avoid too many female artists. I think that Music Row saw this, began signing male acts and started releasing more male singles, and thus we're now in a male-dominated cycle."

Levy -- who has several new female artists in varying stages of development at Warner Bros. -- counters: "I don't believe the labels are purposefully signing fewer female artists. Producing compelling music on each artist, regardless of gender, has become increasingly difficult for A&R. We're not going to throw out singles on new females just because we need a new female. We feel the timing is right for a new female to bust through, and, to increase our chances, we will take plenty of time searching for hits, recording and experimenting."

Doug Montgomery, operations manager of WBCT Grand Rapids, Mich., says that despite the perfect storm that engulfed Hill, Twain and the Chicks, "if Wynonna and Martina continue with the success of their current records, Reba follows through with her plan to release a new album and the Dixie Chicks' controversies subside, this will come back to historical norms in a few months."

Miller Emerges as New Voice for Bush Re-Election

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - A new voice has emerged in the re-election campaign of President Bush, that of Dennis Miller, who is gaining a reputation as a conservative comic by attacking Democrats with biting humor.

Miller flew on Air Force One from San Francisco to Los Angeles with the president on Friday, and later gave a stand-up routine at a Bush fund-raiser in Los Angeles.

"I spent an amazing couple of hours with Dennis Miller," Bush said during his Los Angeles speech after Miller's routine. "He keeps you on your toes."

He added: "I was also honored to meet his wife, Carolyn. Like me, he married above himself. It may not be all that hard, in his case. But I'm proud to have his help."

Miller, who was an analyst on ABC's "Monday Night Football, had an HBO comedy show and does commentary for Fox News, adds a celebrity touch to Bush's re-election campaign, much like actor Bruce Willis did in 1992 when Bush's father ran for re-election.

Bush remained offstage until after Miller's often caustic comic performance during the fund-raiser that drew in $3.5 million, most of it in $2,000 checks from 1,600 people.

For instance, he took aim at West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd, a Democratic elder statesmen who has questioned the Iraq war and its chaotic aftermath.

Even some in the crowd of Republican loyalists booed when Miller said of Byrd: "I think he must be burning the cross at both ends."

Responding to the boos, Miller said: "Well, he was in the (Ku Klux) Klan. Boo me, but he was in the Klan."

He likened the nine Democratic presidential candidates running to unseat Bush in 2004 to the 1962 New York Mets, perennial losers, and called them an "empty-headed scrum."

He had a special barb for one candidate, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who has questioned the Iraq war, comparing him to Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister who followed a policy of appeasement of Nazi Germany in the years before World War II.

"He can roll up his sleeves all he wants at public events, but as long as we see that heart tattoo with Neville Chamberlain's name on his right forearms, he's never going anywhere," Miller said.

Lenny Kravitz Forms Label

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Lenny Kravitz has formed Roxie Records, an imprint named for his late mother, Roxie Roker, that will be distributed through Warner Bros.

He remains signed to Virgin Records as a recording artist and will release a new studio album, "Funk," in the fall, according to a spokesperson.

"Lenny and I have a long-term relationship," says Jeff Ayeroff, Warner Bros. "creative czar," as he refers to himself. Ayeroff worked with Kravitz when he was co-chairman of Virgin Records America. "Lenny and I have always talked about the next phase of his career. This is what I call his Quincy Jones phase," Ayeroff says.

Among the first signees to Roxie is vocalist Dan Dyer, who is at work with engineer Matt Knobel on his debut album. Knobel worked behind the scenes on Kravitz's 2002 album, "Lenny."

Acting Legend Katharine Hepburn Dead at 96

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Actress Katharine Hepburn, who won an unequaled four best actress Oscars in a career that spanned five decades, has died at her home in Connecticut at the age of 96, police in her hometown said on Sunday.

Hepburn, whose health had been in decline for some time and had not spoken for several days, passed away peacefully, said her brother-in-law Ellsworth Grant.

"She's the greatest actress of her age and with her passing that whole galaxy of great movie stars has ended," Grant, who saw the screen legend shortly before she died, told Reuters.

He said the cause of death was "simply complications from old age."

Hepburn won her first Oscar in 1933 for "Morning Glory" and won again for "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," "The Lion in Winter" and "On Golden Pond." She was nominated for the award eight other times.

Irreverent and feisty, Hepburn always spoke her mind. Her independent spirit made her a role model to many women, and she was voted America's most admired woman in a 1985 Ladies Home Journal survey.

Hepburn also starred in film classics including "Little Women" and "The African Queen."

Her last film was "Love Affair" with Warren Beatty, released in the early 1990s.

Hepburn was called the first lady of American cinema. Her trademarks: high cheekbones, auburn hair and a voice redolent of her upper-class New England origins.

"She is the person who put women in pants, literally and figuratively," her biographer, Christopher Andersen, told Reuters in 2000. "She is the greatest star, the greatest actress, that Hollywood has ever produced."

"With the passing of Frank Sinatra, and the death of Jimmy Stewart, she really was the last of that breed of Hollywood royalty," Andersen said. "And she was by far the greatest."

The actress did not escape criticism, however. Her performances were sometimes called cold, and it was of Hepburn that Dorothy Parker made her famous quip that she displayed "the gamut of emotions from A to B."

Hepburn also starred in film classics including "Little Women," "The African Queen," "The Philadelphia Story," "A Bill of Divorcement," "Pat and Mike," "Adam's Rib," "State of the Union" and "Long Day's Journey Into Night."

Her last film was "Love Affair" in 1994, in which she played Ginny, aunt of ex-football star Mike Gambril, played by Warren Beatty.

She played opposite such leading men as James Stewart, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne and Henry Fonda. But it is with Spencer Tracy that her name will be forever linked.

Not only did she make nine films with Tracy, but for 27 years she was the "other woman" in his life. Tracy, a Roman Catholic, would not divorce his wife. Hepburn, in a 1991 interview with ABC television, said she loved Tracy but did not remember if he had ever told her he loved her.

"We lived openly enough together," she said. "I certainly had no intention of breaking up his relationship with his wife."
 
Hepburn said she first met Tracy's wife on the night he died in Hepburn's house and she called his family.

In an interview four years before Tracy died, she said, "I have had 20 years of perfect companionship with a man among men. He is a rock and a protection. I've never regretted it."

She had a 1930s affair with billionaire Howard Hughes, but recounted in her 1991 biography "Me" that she never loved him.

Hartford, Connecticut, native Hepburn in late 1996 gave up the townhouse on New York's East 49th Street that she had kept since the 1930s. She retreated fulltime to the family mansion in Fenwick, an upper-class borough in Old Saybrook on Long Island Sound.

"Giving up the townhouse was a difficult decision for her; it was very wrenching emotionally," said Andersen, author of the 1997 book "An Affair to Remember: The Remarkable Love Story of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy."

Hepburn lived a quiet, reclusive life in Fenwick, and was rarely seen in public. Friends and relatives said she suffered from short-term memory loss, but it was not clear if she had Alzheimer's disease.

Despite her carefully guarded privacy that fueled occasional speculation that she was seriously ill, Hepburn surprised the world in March of 2000 -- two months before her 93rd birthday -- when she told a New York newspaper she was feeling fine.

"Tell everyone I am doing fine!" she told the New York Post in a rare interview published on March 10, 2000. "I am OK."

Dressed in a purple jumpsuit and sitting by a roaring fire in her living room, the actress said she was still a big eater, enjoying homemade meals prepared by her cook.

Hepburn was an amateur painter of some skill and her work decorated walls at the New York townhouse that she shared with Tracy and where she lived for over 60 years.

Her career began an on the stage in the early 1930s, moved mainly to the screen and expanded to television in the 1980s.

She once said, I find myself absolutely fascinating ... but I'm uncomplicated. When I'm supposed to talk, I talk. When I go to bed, I sleep. When I'm supposed to eat, I eat.

But summarizing a Hepburn film retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art, critic Kenneth Tynan countered: "She is not versatile. She is simply unique."

She told The New York Times in an interview published in September 1991 that her screen and private personas hardly differed. "I had a very definite personality and I liked material that showed that personality," she said.

Katharine Houghton Hepburn was born May 12, 1907, to an upper-class doctor's family in Hartford, Connecticut, but reference books listed her birthday as 2 1/2 years later, on Nov. 8, 1909.

Later in life she admitted that she had lied about her age, telling The New York Times that she knocked two years off when she approached 30 and had adopted the November birth date of her elder brother Tom, who killed himself when she was 14.

She discovered his body and, according to a recent biography of her by Barbara Leaming, Hepburn tried to become him, fulfilling his role as his father's favorite child.

Hepburn was educated at home by tutors. She was a tomboy and at 15 cut her hair very short, wore pants and pretended to be a young man named Jimmy.

Despite her masculine tendencies, rumors that Hepburn was bisexual or gay were not true, author Andersen said.

Hepburn became interested in dramatics while attending college at Bryn Mawr, where she received a B.A. in 1928. After some summer stock success, she made her Broadway debut in a show called "Night Hostess." The show was short-lived but it led to other Broadway parts and to her first big stage success, "The Warrior's Husband," which brought her film offers.

In 1933 she starred on screen in "Morning Glory," winning her first Academy Award for her portrayal of a stage-struck tomboy.

She was married from 1928 to 1934 to Ludlow Ogden Smith, a wealthy Philadelphian, who changed his name to Ogden because she did not want to be known as Mrs. Smith. After the divorce she decided that "marriage was not a natural institution" and never remarried.

Impatient with the films she was being forced to make for RKO Pictures, Hepburn bought out her contract for $220,000 in 1939 and returned to the stage where she starred as Tracy Lord in Philip Barry's 1939 comedy, "The Philadelphia Story."

She also starred as a prim missionary in the 1951 film "The African Queen" with Humphrey Bogart and later wrote a book about her experiences on location in Africa with Bogart and director John Huston.

Letterman ending Friday breaks

NEW YORK (AP) -- David Letterman is going back on the air Fridays.
After a month of the veteran "Late Show" host turning Friday nights over to guest hosts, Jimmy Fallon's stint Friday was going to be the last, spokesman Tom Keaney said.

Tom Green, Tom Arnold and Kelsey Grammer had also filled in for Letterman.

"I've worked since I was 11 years old," Letterman, 56, had said on his CBS show. "And I just feel like it's summer now, I'd like to take a day off."

Oddly, Letterman didn't even get a day off. He usually tapes his Friday shows on Thursday evenings, after taping Thursday's show; so he just left work early during this stretch.

Although ratings in the summer aren't watched as closely as those during the regular TV season, "Tonight" host Jay Leno's lead over Letterman has increased in the past month.

Rush added to Stones T.O. gig

Canadian rock legends Rush have been confirmed for the Rolling Stones concert in Toronto on July 30 at Downsview Park.

The announcement was made on the band's official website, where in a one-sentence blurb they confirmed they will be joining the ever-growing list of artists for the special gig to help Toronto's SARS-scarred economy.

The concert also features AC/DC, The Guess Who, Justin Timberlake, Sam Roberts, The Flaming Lips, Kathleen Edwards, The Isley Brothers, Sass Jordan and La Chicane.

Organizers hinted that more artists are likely to be added to the bill, although they wouldn't comment on rumours of who else will be added.

Tickets for the nine-hour show -- which went on sale Friday -- are available through all Ticketmater outlets for $21.50 plus service charges. Starting July 4, tickets can also be purchased at A&P and Dominion stores in Ontario.

The bash will be hosted by Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi and organizers hope to draw 300,000 revellers, including 100,000 from outside Ontario.

MTV Won't Play Foo Fighters' New Video

MTV has announced that they won't be airing The Foo Fighters' new video for their song "Low" because of two controversial pieces. In the video, actor Jack Black and lead singer Dave Grohl dress up in women's clothes and dance around. The first objectionable part is when the two begin spanking each other. The second objectionable part sees Black and Grohl going horizontal and "intermingling with each other," i.e., implying sex. Because of the announcement, TFF says that they will release a DVD of the video on July 1. The DVD will contain "Low," plus three different video versions of "Times Like These." It will retail for $5.95.

Travolta Up for BRIDGET JONES 2

John Travolta is apparently in talks to play Rene Zellwegger's love interest in BRIDGET JONES: THE EDGE OF REASON. Apparently the producers wanted George Clooney, but Zellwegger nixed that choice. Says a source, "Renee was adamant on this point, and would not be swayed. The producers had toyed with the idea of getting a new leading actress, and keeping Gorgeous George, but how many actresses are likely to put on two stone? Not very many."

SUPERGIRL Begins the Casting Merry Go-Round

Akiva Goldsman (BATMAN & ROBIN) is gearing up to script a new version of SUPERGIRL. Naomi Watts (THE RING) and Alicia Silverstone (BATMAN & ROBIN) are apparently in the lead to play the lead role.

Samuel L. Jackson talks Mace Windu's fate in STAR WARS EPISODE III.

Samuel L. Jackson revealed the fate of his Star Wars: Episode III character, Mace Windu, in a spoiler-filled interview with MTV.com. "I'm just going to die, you know?" Jackson told the site. "I'm basically going down there, hoping that I'm going to have this really awesome lightsaber battle with somebody that takes me out in the proper way. You know, the way a Jedi of my status deserves to be taken out."

Jackson said that he travels to Australia next month to begin work on George Lucas' third and final Star Wars prequel. "I never realized I would end up with some kind of franchise character that's in the middle of a big franchise of its own, but it's very cool," Jackson said. "Mace is kind of evolving for me. And it's been a wonderful experience, being able to be in Star Wars, first of all because I was a huge fan. I used to sit around and wonder how you got into something like that, and how great it would be to be in it. Fortunately for me, somebody must have heard me, and I'm in it!" Star Wars: Episode III is scheduled to hit theaters in 2005.

Waterston on 'Law' Docket Through 2005

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - It'll be at least an even 10 years on the "Law & Order" beat for Sam Waterston, who plays a hard-charging assistant district attorney on the veteran NBC crime drama.

Waterston signed on as "Law & Order" in 1994, and the show's producers have picked up his option to stick with the Emmy-winning series at least the 2004-05 season.

He ranks as the third-longest-serving actor currently on the show -- which is famous for periodically overhauling its cast -- behind Jerry Orbach, who has played Detective Lennie Briscoe since 1992, and S. Epatha Merkerson, who has played Lt. Anita Van Buren since 1993.

Waterston has earned three lead actor Emmy nominations (in 1997, 1999 and 2000) for his work as Jack McCoy on "Law & Order." He also garnered a lead actor Oscar nomination in 1985 for his role in "The Killing Fields."

"Law & Order," which bowed in 1990, has defied the laws of primetime gravity by gaining audience share in recent years. The series will begin its 14th season in the fall. NBC and producer Universal Network Television are expected to begin negotiating a long-term renewal deal for "Law & Order" and its spinoffs, "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" and "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," later this year. It's understood that a possible fourth "Law & Order" series will be included as part of those negotiations.

R.E.M. sets date for hits album

R.E.M. has booked October 28 as the release date for their second compilation, "In Time: The Best Of R.E.M. 1998-2003," according to their official website.

The set will feature two brand new tracks, "Bad Day" (which is slated as the single) and "Animal."

Tim Hope, who has directed videos for Coldplay and Jimmy Eat World, recently shot a video for "Bad Day" in Vancouver.

The Athens, Georgia band has been recording its new album with "Reveal" producers Patrick McCarthy and Jamie Candiloro since November. The album will be released sometime in 2004.

Boston Sues Artemis For Breach Of Contract

Veteran rock act Boston has filed a breach-of-contract suit against New York-based indie label Artemis Records and CEO Danny Goldberg, seeking damages in excess of $1 million, Billboard Bulletin reports.

Artemis last year released Boston's album "Corporate America." The action, filed Tuesday in New York Supreme Court, claims that Goldberg assured Boston the album would be "the highest priority" for Artemis, but the company "[provided] more smoke and mirrors than commitment to its artists."

The suit claims that a round of layoffs at Artemis eliminated key staff members necessary to fulfill the label's obligations to the group. It also says Artemis "[failed] to execute almost every element of [the Boston marketing] plan," and claims that the success of the band's summer tour is in jeopardy due to the label's failure to properly promote the album.

An Artemis spokesperson had no comment at deadline, saying the label had not yet seen the suit.

"Corporate America," Boston's first Artemis album, was released Nov. 5, 2002, and has sold 119,000 copies in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan. Boston's self-titled 1976 debut is one of the best-selling albums of all time; it has been certified for U.S. shipments of 16 million units by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Boston's suit marks the second time this year Artemis has been hit with litigation by one of its acts. In March, female rock act Kittie lodged a breach-of-contract action against the label in federal court in New York.

Boston leader and guitarist Tom Scholz has a long history of litigation: in 1983, he began a protracted legal battle with CBS Records over unpaid royalties. A federal jury awarded Scholz $20 million in 1990.

Crow, Blige, Dixie Chicks, Carlton, Others Back RIAA's Plan To Sue File Traders

The Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA) is vowing to sue those who illegally download music, and some of the biggest names in music are supporting the idea. In a statement issued on Wednesday (June 25), RIAA President Cary Sherman warned, "This activity is illegal, you are not anonymous when you do it, and engaging in it can have real consequences."

Sherman says the RIAA has begun gathering evidence against swappers, and expects to begin filing suits as early as mid-August.

Several big-name artists have issued statements supporting the RIAA's harsh stance against file swapping. Grammy-winner Sheryl Crow said, "Music fans cannot expect their favorite musicians to continue to produce quality albums if they are not willing to pay. People, including musicians, expect to be rewarded for a job well done. It's all about supply and demand. If there is not demand, there will eventually be no supply."

Mary J. Blige said, "If you create something and then someone takes it without your permission, that is stealing. It may sound harsh, but it is true."

According to the Dixie Chicks, "It may seem innocent enough, but every time you illegally download music a songwriter doesn't get paid. And, every time you swap that music with your friends a new artist doesn't get a chance. Respect the artists you love by not stealing their music."

Vanessa Carlton said, "I'm all for getting a taste of something before you buy it, but when it becomes more than a taste and people begin hoarding the entire work, it becomes piracy which results in a system in which artists are not being rewarded for their works."

Other artists siding with the RIAA include Brooks & Dunn, Mandy Moore, Shakira, Peter Gabriel, and songwriter Lamont Dozier.

Leguizamo Ready for ICE AGE 2

John Leguizamo says that he expects to sign on soon for ICE AGE 2. Apparently Ray Romano and Dennis Leary are already on board for the project. Leguizamo will resume his role as Sid, the giant sloth. Voice work will begin later this year.

GAINING RESPECT

MGM planning to remake the 1986 Rodney Dangerfield comedy Back to School. The comedian will help develop the picture and will likely do a cameo.

Blockbuster Debuts Have Hollywood Heads Shaking

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - As the summer movie season nears its second half and "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" cranks up for a Friday debut, Hollywood heads are shaking at what appears to be a new gold standard of blockbuster success -- the $50 million debut.

If "Full Throttle" tops that mark, it would be the seventh weekend out of nine since the May 2 release of "X2: X-Men United" that the No. 1 film in the United States has beaten what box office watchers are saying is the new benchmark.

"It is the threshold. It is the mark," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box office tracker Exhibitor Relations Inc.

In all of 2002, only eight films saw a $50 million weekend debut and in 2000, only three did, according to Exhibitor Relations. Given their star power, summer 2003's films look to easily eclipse all of 2002's $50 million openers.

Major films like "Bad Boys II" with Will Smith, "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" with Johnny Depp, "Seabiscuit" with Tobey Maguire and "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life" are still to come in July.

August has the "American Pie" kids returning in comedy "American Wedding," Nicolas Cage in "Matchstick Men," and Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck pairing up in "Gigli."

"Not only do you have pictures that are potentially huge debuts," said Jeff Blake, vice chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, "But several have terrific playability." That means the films could play well in theaters for weeks.

Chuck Viane, film distribution chief at Walt Disney Co. said the studios have done a good job of programming theaters each weekend with different films for dissimilar audience tastes.

For instance, during the long Independence Day holiday -- the start of Hollywood's second half of summer -- three new movies debut: "Terminator 3; Rise of the Machines" aimed at men, "Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde" for women and animated "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas" for kids.

SCARY PROPOSITION

Still, Blake, Viane and Nikki Rocco, distribution president for Universal Pictures whose "Hulk" set a June record last week with a $63 million opening, are all concerned by the notion they must mount a $50 million debut to be judged a success.

Blake calls it a "scary proposition." Rocco said it is "unfortunate," and Viane added "the bar is too high."

Achieving a $50 million opening is no easy trick. It takes placing the right movie in the right number of theaters and spending tens of millions of dollars on marketing that will create must-see audience awareness.

Low-budget films or less hyped films can easily be overlooked. Often, successful films are deemed unsuccessful simply because they did not open at No. 1.

"Anytime a movie exceeds $30 million, you can still have a major picture," Viane said.

A good example is "The Italian Job," a crime caper that debuted against gargantuan fish tale, "Finding Nemo." It was No. 3 its first weekend with $19 million to "Nemo's" $70 million. Yet, the well-liked "Job" had "playability," and it has gone on to rack up a respectable $70 million since late May.

The reason for the new bar is pretty simple. More first-run movies are playing in more theaters than ever before, and there are plenty of seats and show times available at new mega-plex theaters.
 
The downside is that big debuts generally lead to big ticket sales drop-offs of 50 percent or more in a film's second week. "2 Fast 2 Furious" opened to $52 million, and in its second weekend fell to $19 million.

"The bigger you open, the bigger the erosion," said Rocco, but of the "Hulk," she added, "I'll open to $63 million and drop off 50 percent and be thrilled with that."

'Hillbillies' Star Buddy Ebsen in Calif. Hospital

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former "Beverly Hillbillies" star Buddy Ebsen was in a southern California hospital on Thursday with an undisclosed illness.

Hospital officials said Ebsen, 95, was admitted to the Torrance Memorial Medical Center earlier this week. No details of his illness were available but a hospital spokeswoman said his condition was "good."

Ebsen started his career as a dancer on Broadway and later starred in a number of MGM musicals. He became known to a new generation in the 1960s in his role as family patriarch Jed Clampett in the television sitcom "The Beverly Hillbillies" and later as a private investigator in the 1970s TV show "Barnaby Jones."

Ex-S.C. Sen. Strom Thurmond Dies at 100

WASHINGTON - Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, a one-time Democratic segregationist who helped fuel the rise of the modern conservative Republican Party in the South, died Thursday. He was 100 and the longest-serving senator in history.

Thurmond died at 9:45 p.m. after having been in poor health in recent weeks, his son Strom Thurmond Jr. said. He had been living in a newly renovated wing of a hospital in his hometown of Edgefield, S.C., since he returned to the state from Washington earlier this year.

"Surrounded by family, my father was resting comfortably, without pain, and in total peace," Thurmond Jr. said in a statement released by the hospital.

The Senate temporarily suspended debate on Medicare legislation to pay tribute to Thurmond. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said, "Strom Thurmond will forever be a symbol of what one person can accomplish when they live life, as we all know he did, to the fullest." Frist, R-Tenn., then led the Senate in a moment of silence.

"He had enthusiasm and passion like no one I've ever met in my life," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who replaced Thurmond in the Senate. "South Carolina's favorite son is gone but he'll never be forgotten."

Thurmond, whose physical and political endurance were legendary — he holds the record for solo Senate filibustering — retired on Jan. 5, 2003, after more than 48 years in office.

Age took its inevitable toll on Thurmond as he neared retirement, and he was guided through the Capitol in a wheelchair. Yet he wielded political power virtually to the end, prevailing upon President Bush to appoint his 29-year-old son, Strom Jr., as U.S. Attorney in South Carolina in 2001.

Thurmond is "beyond criticism" in South Carolina, Furman University political scientist Don Aiesi said as the senator's health declined and he underwent a series of hospitalizations late in his congressional tenure. "Strom is the most venerable of institutions here."

In a political career that spanned seven decades, Thurmond won his first election in 1928, to local office, and his last in 1996, to his eighth Senate term. "We cannot and I shall not give up on our mission to right the 40-year wrongs of liberalism," he said during his last campaign. "The people of South Carolina know that Strom Thurmond doesn't like unfinished business."

His voting record was pro-defense, anti-communist and staunchly conservative. His devotion to constituent services was legendary. He was a lifelong physical fitness buff, who shunned tobacco and alcohol and was known for his vigorous handshake. He had a storied, lifelong reputation as a ladies' man.

Thurmond ran for president as a Dixiecrat in 1948 and won 39 Southern electoral votes as part of a states-rights uprising against President Harry Truman's support for civil rights. Nearly a decade later, he set the Senate record for filibustering when he spoke for a straight 24 hours and 18 minutes against a bill to end discrimination in housing.

Ironically, his presidential campaign sparked controversy more than a half-century later, when then-Majority Leader Trent Lott declared at Thurmond's 100th birthday party that voters of Mississippi were proud to have supported the South Carolinian when he ran for the White House. "If the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years either," added Lott, who was forced to step down as the Senate's Republican leader in the ensuing uproar.

Thurmond's racial politics changed over the years as blacks began voting in large numbers. He beccame the first Southern senator to hire a black aide, supported the appointment of a black Southern federal judge and voted to make Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a national holiday.

His outlook seemed far different a half century ago, when he ran for president.

"I want to tell you," he declared in one speech in 1948, "that there's not enough troops in the Army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the Negro race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes and into our churches."

Thurmond grew up a Democrat — his father once ran for office — but switched to the GOP in 1964 to support Barry Goldwater's conservative campaign for the White House.

He said at the time he had made the move because Democrats were "leading the evolution of our nation to a socialistic dictatorship."

Like other Southern states, South Carolina had been a one-party Democratic state since the end of Reconstruction nearly a century earlier. Thurmond's switch anticipated a broader trend. By the 1990s, the South favored the GOP, and Republican candidates generally triumphed in statewide races in South Carolina.

The first time he ran as a Republican, in 1966, he won easily.

In 1968, Thurmond played a pivotal role in executing the "Southern Strategy" that helped Richard Nixon win the White House. The South Carolinian helped hold Southern delegates in line at the GOP convention when a charismatic conservative, Ronald Reagan, made a late play for the nomination. In the general election, he sought to blunt George Wallace's third-party candidacy in the South, arguing that anything but a vote for Nixon would help elect a liberal Democrat, Hubert Humphrey.

Born Dec. 5, 1902, in Edgefield, S.C., James Strom Thurmond — Strom was his mother's maiden name — was elected county school superintendent, state senator and circuit judge before enlisting in the Army in World War II. He landed in Normandy as part of the 82nd Airborne Division assault on D-Day, and won five battle stars and numerous other awards.

The war over, he returned home to resume his political career and won election as governor in 1946. His record was progressive by contemporary standards for a Southern Democrat. He pushed for repeal of the poll tax and boosted education spending.

He lost a race in South Carolina for the only time in his career four years later, when he challenged incumbent Sen. Olin Johnston for renomination. In defeat, he returned home to practice law.

But in 1954, Sen. Burnet Maybank died unexpectedly. When party officials tapped a state lawmaker to run for the post, Thurmond challenged as a write-in candidate, saying the voters, not the party's leaders, should decide who got the nomination. To underscore his credentials as an insurgent, he pledged to resign his seat before seeking re-election in 1956.

He won, the only person in history to capture a seat in Congress by write-in. Two years later, he kept his pledge to resign before running for the four years remaining in the term.

His presidential race and write-in victory behind him, Thurmond arrived in Washington with a nationwide reputation. The civil rights movement was gathering steam, but he held fast to his segregationist views for years.

He was a leader in drafting the Southern Manifesto of 1956, in which Southern lawmakers vowed resistance to the Supreme Court's unanimous school desegregation order. In 1957, he staged his record nonstop filibuster against housing legislation that he denounced as "race mixing."

Ironically, in earlier decades, Thurmond's segregationist views were more nuanced than those held by other Southern politicians.

As governor, he called for forceful prosecution after a black man, a murder suspect, was lynched by a mob. The result was a trial at which 31 white men were defendants.

His 1950 defeat came at the hands of an opponent who made an issue of Thurmond's gubernatorial appointment of a black physician to a state medical advisory board.

Like many one-time segregationists, Thurmond insisted the issue wasn't race but "federal power vs. state power" — though the state power he wanted to preserve was the power to segregate.

"The question of integration was only one facet of that matter," he said in a November 1992 interview.

Showing how much his world had changed, in 1977, Thurmond's young daughter, Nancy, 6, enrolled in a public school in Columbia, S.C., that was 50 percent black. The girl's teacher also was black.

Thurmond's first wife, Jean Crouch, was 23 years his junior. The couple married in 1947, and she died of a brain tumor in 1960.

His second wife, former beauty queen Nancy Moore, was 44 years younger than Thurmond when they were married in 1968. Thurmond was 68 when their first child, Nancy, was born. The couple had three other children before separating in 1991: Strom Jr., Juliana and Paul. His daughter Nancy died in 1993 after being struck by a car.

Costello Heads 'North' On New Album

Elvis Costello has dubbed his upcoming album "North." Due Sept. 23 via Deutsche Grammophon, the album is comprised solely of ballads.

"The record begins with a song called 'You Left Me In the Dark' and ends with a track called 'I'm In the Mood Again,'" Costello explains in a statement. "You have to listen to what goes on in between to find out why."

As previously reported, the collection will feature instrumentation ranging from a solo piano to an enormous ensemble.

Along with frequent collaborator and Attractions/Imposters keyboardist Steve Nieve, "North" features drummer Peter Erskine and double-bassist Mike Formanek, as well as Costello's own piano work on the songs "Let Me Tell You About Her" and "I'm In the Mood Again."

Written over the final months of 2002 and recorded in New York in April and May, the album reunites Costello with the Brodksy Quartet. He last worked with the string ensemble on 1993's "Juliet Letters" (Warner Bros.). On "North," the group performs parts co-written by Nieve on the track "Still."

As previously reported, Costello and the Imposters begin a summer North American tour July 2 in Toronto. It comes in support of the group's 2002 Island album "When I Was Cruel," which debuted at No. 20 on The Billboard 200.

Yet Another Title for EPISODE III

Moviehole is reporting that the new title for STAR WARS EPISODE III is AN EMPIRE DIVIDED. Lucasfilm hasn't had time to deny this one yet.

LEGAL EAGLES

ABC officially announcing that James Spader and Rhona Mitra are joining the cast of The Practice.

'Sesame Street' Video Tackles Kids' Fears

NEW YORK - The Muppets have more to offer than lessons on numbers, letters and shapes — now they're teaching children about fear, violence and war.
 

The nonprofit group behind "Sesame Street" announced plans Wednesday to distribute 75,000 copies of a video called "You Can Ask!" that encourages children to ask their parents when they are confused about feelings.

The video, paid for by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is aimed at helping children cope with repeated media images of the Sept. 11 terror attacks and other violence in the world.

"Too often, children in America are witnessing too much, too soon," said Gary Knell, president and chief executive officer of Sesame Workshop.

At a press conference Wednesday, Emilio Delgado, who plays Luis on "Sesame Street," led 25 New York City kindergartners in a rendition of the alphabet song. Then he explained to a furry, teal Muppet named Rosita that "children can ask their parents questions when they're scared, when they're very confused and worried."

The videos will be distributed this summer and fall to schools, mental health offices, crisis counselors and child-care programs in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The producers hope to take the program nationwide.

Producers said it could be used to help kids handle everyday trauma, too.

In a segment on fear, a New York City firefighter helps Elmo — the bright-eyed, high-pitched red Muppet adored by children — grow comfortable with returning to Hooper's Store after a fire there.

In a segment on loss, an adult helps Big Bird feel better after a stray turtle he had cared for suddenly leaves his nest. Two other scenes deal with bullying and accepting others' differences.

The videos are in English, but instructional material for parents is also being offered in Spanish and Mandarin Chinese. Producers said they wanted to make sure children living in Chinatown, just blocks from ground zero, could benefit.

Chris Rock Will Return to Host MTV Awards

NEW YORK - Chris Rock will be back as host of the MTV Video Music Awards, the cable channel announced Wednesday.

But he acknowledges that his stand-up skills are a little rusty.

So the comedian is going on a cross-country club tour to prepare for the 20th annual awards show Aug. 28 at Radio City Music Hall.

"I haven't performed in a lo-o-o-o-ng time," Rock told The Associated Press in a phone interview Wednesday.

After starring in the Emmy-winning "Chris Rock Show" on HBO in the late '90s, he's been focusing on films the past few years, including "Down to Earth," a remake of "Heaven Can Wait"; "Bad Company" with Anthony Hopkins; and this year's "Head of State," his directorial debut, in which he starred as a presidential candidate.

Rock won't announce his comedy show dates ahead of time — he wouldn't even say where the tour will begin next week. Tickets will go on sale in each city just 24 hours in advance.

But after having hosted the irreverent awards show in 1997 and 1999, Rock knows that much of the comedy springs organically as the evening progresses. Jimmy Fallon from "Saturday Night Live" — of which Rock is an alum — was the host last year.

"You watch people host these shows who change outfits eight times in the show. No — watch the show. That's the most important thing," Rock said.

"Half the time the presenters don't read what's on the cue cards and you never know when Diana Ross is going to grab Lil' Kim's (breast), and you'd hate to miss that because you're putting on something from Banana Republic."

Rock was referring to one of the more outrageous moments in Video Music Award history in 1999, when Ross fondled rapper Lil' Kim's left breast, which was covered only in a lavender pasty.

Over the past year, though, the 37-year-old has been keeping busy with more wholesome activities — his daughter with wife Malaak Compton-Rock, Lola Simone, who's turning 1 on Saturday.

"You just want to protect your kid from stuff. It makes you want to work harder as an artist. Now you need the money — what's college going to cost in 18 years?" he asked.

"I've had two callings in life: stand-up comedy and fatherhood," added Rock. "Those are the only things I embrace."

Music Labels Step Up Internet Piracy Hunt

WASHINGTON - The embattled music industry disclosed plans Wednesday for an unprecedented escalation in its fight against Internet piracy, threatening to sue hundreds of individual computer users who illegally share music files online.

The Recording Industry Association of America, citing significant sales declines, said it will begin Thursday to search Internet file-sharing networks to identify music fans who offer "substantial" collections of MP3 song files for downloading.

It expects to file at least several hundred lawsuits seeking financial damages within eight to 10 weeks.

Executives for the RIAA, the Washington-based lobbying group that represents major labels, would not say how many songs on a user's computer might qualify for a lawsuit. The new campaign comes just weeks after U.S. appeals court rulings requiring Internet providers to identify subscribers suspected of illegally sharing music and movie files.

The RIAA's president, Cary Sherman, said tens of millions of Internet users of popular file-sharing software after Thursday will expose themselves to "the real risk of having to face the music." He said the RIAA plans only to file lawsuits against Internet users in the United States.

"It's stealing. It's both wrong and illegal," Sherman said. Alluding to the court decisions, Sherman said Internet users who believe they can hide behind an alias online are mistaken. "You are not anonymous," Sherman said. "We're going to begin taking names."

Shopping at a Virgin Megastore in San Francisco, Jason Yoder was planning to delete file-sharing software he uses from his home computer because of the new lawsuit threat. He acknowledged using the Internet recently to find a copy of a rare 1970s soul recording, but he agreed that illegal downloads should be curtailed.

"It's sort of like a serial drunk driver has to have their license taken away at some point," said Yoder, 30.

Sharman Networks Ltd., which makes the popular Kazaa software and operates one of the world's largest file-sharing networks, said in a statement, "It is unfortunate that the RIAA has chosen to declare war on its customers by engaging in protracted and expensive litigation." Sharman said it was interested in a business relationship with music labels and could protect their songs from illegal downloads using technology.

Country songwriter Hugh Prestwood, who has worked with Randy Travis, Trisha Yearwood and Jimmy Buffett, likened the RIAA's effort to a roadside police officer on a busy highway.

"It doesn't take too many tickets to get everybody to obey the speed limit," Prestwood said.

Critics accused the RIAA of resorting to heavy-handed tactics likely to alienate millions of Internet file-sharers.

"This latest effort really indicates the recording industry has lost touch with reality completely," said Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Does anyone think more lawsuits are going to be the answer? Today they have declared war on the American consumer."

Sherman disputed that consumers, who are gradually turning to legitimate Web sites to buy music legally, will object to the industry's latest efforts against pirates.

"You have to look at exactly who are your customers," he said. "You could say the same thing about shoplifters — are you worried about alienating them? All sorts of industries and retailers have come to the conclusion that they need to be able to protect their rights. We have come to the same conclusion."

Mike Godwin of Public Knowledge, a consumer group that has challenged broad crackdowns on file-sharing networks, said Wednesday's announcement was appropriate because it targeted users illegally sharing copyrighted files.

"I'm sure it's going to freak them out," Godwin said. "The free ride is over." He added: "I wouldn't be surprised if at least some people engaged in file-trading decide to resist and try to find ways to thwart the litigation strategy."
 
The entertainment industry has gradually escalated its fight against piracy. The RIAA has previously sued four college students it accused of making thousands of songs available for illegal downloading on campus networks. But Wednesday's announcement was the first effort to target users who offer music on broadly accessible, public networks.

The Motion Picture Association of America said it supported the efforts, but notably did not indicate it plans to file large numbers of civil lawsuits against Internet users who trade movies online.

MPAA Chief Jack Valenti said in a statement it was "our most sincere desire" to find technology solutions to protect digital copies of movies.

Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., who has proposed giving the entertainment industry new powers to disrupt downloads of pirated music and movies, said the RIAA's actions were overdue. "It's about time," Berman said in a statement. "For too long ... file-traffickers have robbed copyright creators with impunity."

The RIAA said its lawyers will file lawsuits initially against people with the largest collections of music files they can find online. U.S. copyright laws allow for damages of $750 to $150,000 for each song offered illegally on a person's computer, but Sherman said the RIAA will be open to settlement proposals from defendants.

Blast It You Infernal Matriarch!

September 16th will see the release of the recent box office disappointment Down with Love, followed by the surprise sleeper hit Bend it like Beckham on the 30th.

Finally, due for release on September 9th is The Family Guy: Volume Two. This three-disc set features the entire third season in 4:3 full screen with English, French and Spanish Dolby 2.0 surround tracks, plus plenty of extras including audio commentary on six episodes (including the unaired "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein"), 15 minutes of animatics, the pilot pitch and a series overview. Retail will set you back $49.95.

Canadian Walk Of Fame Gets Some New Names

TORONTO -- It's showtime for Peter Somoulias, the Toronto businessman behind the televised Canada's Walk Of Fame gala at Roy Thomson Hall tonight.

On his plate is organizing 11 Walk Of Fame inductees, among them country-pop superstar Shania Twain, actor Mike Myers, model Linda Evangelista and hundreds of high-profile guests including telecast host Andrea Martin and presenters Celine Dion and Dan Aykroyd.

'HUGE DEMAND FOR TICKETS'

"Everything's in place. It's just now a question of executing all the little details," Somoulias said yesterday. "When you have the number of national and international celebrities that we have coming and the media focus and the huge demand for tickets, it's challenging. And when you're producing a live show for two hours for the first time ..."

The gala portion of the Walk Of Fame induction will be broadcast live on Global TV from 9-11 p.m. Various presenters will introduce each Walk Of Fame inductee during the telecast. It's a first for the presentations.

Colin Mochrie is delivering a newscast during the show. Musical performers include Tom Cochrane and Sarah Harmer.

It's taken five years to get to this point -- as long as the Walk Of Fame has been around. Somoulias says when he started out he didn't consider that a live broadcast would ever be an element of the event.

"We didn't start out to be a television show," he said. "But the public interest surpassed anything we could have ever imagined.

"And this was the first year we've had all 11 inductees attending at the same time. We've never had that before. And given the national and international standing of a number of these inductees, as well as their presenters and performers, the presentation was made to us, 'Well, go live across the country.'

And we said, as we usually say, 'Why not?'"

More than 100 journalists will cover the event, from the Hollywood Reporter to Entertainment Tonight, and Somoulias suspects the SARS outbreak had something to do with increased interest outside Canada.

BARRED BY THEIR INSURERS

"I gotta imagine that perhaps a small part of that interest might also be about what's going on in Toronto," he said.

"I think SARS has affected everybody who is dealing with any kind of celebrity and show production. We're affected to a lesser extent, because we're Canadians and we don't rely on international celebrities."

Somoulias said some international guests had expressed interest in attending the event, but "their insurance companies prohibited them from travelling. These were guests of the inductees who were going to come up here and be part of this in support of their friends."

Somoulias says members of the public will get quite close to the celebrities (from 4 to 5 metres).

'South Park' Pair Pull Strings in Terror Pic

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - After ridiculing SaddamHussein in the animated feature "South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut," the cartoon's creators are taking on terrorism, marionette-style, in a new film project.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone are writing the untitled project, previously known as "American Heroes," which Paramount Pictures is expected to distribute. Parker and Stone will direct and voice the film as well.

According to several sources, the project in development is a marionette movie about superheroes on a mission to eradicate such things as terrorism and certain celebrities who have outworn their welcome in the public eye.

Neither Paramount nor the film's producer, Scott Rudin, would comment. But the "South Park" creators revealed in March that they were working with Rudin, an executive producer on "Uncut," on a "top secret movie."

"We are working with Scott Rudin," Parker said at that time. "We just got the deal for it. We're gonna write this movie for him this summer. That's how we're gonna spend our vacation time."

Added Stone: "It'll be animated ... but won't have anything to do with 'South Park."'

Parker and Stone most recently created an animated segment called "A Brief History about the United States of America," illustrating the role that violence has played in the country's history, which was featured in Michael Moore's Oscar-winning documentary "Bowling for Columbine."

Greengrass to Helm BOURNE IDENTITY Sequel

Universal has tapped Paul Greengrass (BLOODY SUNDAY) to direct THE BOURNE SUPREMACY, the sequel to THE BOURNE IDENTITY. Greengrass will work from a script by Tony Gilroy, who adapted Robert Ludlum's second book in the Bourne series. In the second film, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is accused of assassinating a Chinese vice premiere. Bourne must then find out the real identity of the assassin. Frank Marshall, Paul Sandburg and Patrick Crowley are producing.

New Episode III Title?

Cinescape is reporting that the new title of the next STAR WARS movie is supposedly REVENGE OF THE SITH. However, Lucasfilm has already denied the rumor.

Pretty On DVD!

The holy grail of the cinema du John Hughes - Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Weird Science - is finally ready to be unleashed on September 2nd from Universal Studios Home Video.

As the disciples of the pied piper of 80's teen cinema already know all too well, the long hoped-for reissues of these flicks have already been announced once and then postponed, so will this time be the charm? Let's hope so, and although full specs have not yet been announced, each will be newly remastered in anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 surround tracks, plus trailers.

Retail will be $19.95 each, or $39.95 for a 3-disc Brat Pack set.

Eminem Stuns U.K. Fan With $450K Necklace

LONDON - Eminem stunned tens of thousands of people attending a concert in England by giving a necklace estimated at $450,000 to one of his fans.

"I'm going to give this to the sexiest woman I see," Eminem said from the stage of the concert attended by 65,000 fans in Milton Keynes city on Monday night, according to the British Broadcasting Corp.

He then leaned over the stage into the crowd and gave his jewelry to a stunned girl standing at the front of the audience, the BBC said.

Spokesmen for Eminem in New York and Los Angeles were not able to confirm the gift. And officials traveling with the 30-year-old rapper in Britain during his Anger Management Tour were not immediately available Tuesday.

"It looked like a huge diamond-encrusted crucifix," said a nearby member of the audience, Toby Friedner. "The girl he gave it to was blond, pretty, wearing glasses and 18 to 20," he was quoted as saying.

"She was obviously shocked," Friedner said.

Rolling Stones to Rock SARS-Hit Toronto in July

TORONTO (Reuters) - The Rolling Stones vowed on Tuesday to "bring back the energy" to SARS-hit Toronto with an open-air concert next month for about 350,000 people.

The Toronto area was the only place outside Asia where people died from SARS, and tourists, convention-goers and business people postponed travel to Canada's financial hub.

The city responded with an appeal to the Stones' promoter, a Torontonian, to bring the band to the city.

"The greatest band in the world is going to play in the greatest city in the world," Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman told a news conference announcing the concert. "The people who live here know that Toronto is a safe city. After the Rolling Stones play here, the entire world is going to know it."

After weeks of scrounging for money to foot the C$10.5 million ($7.7 million) bill, organizers finally drew enough support from the government and the private sector to stage the concert, which had initially been touted as a free event.

The Stones will interrupt the European leg of their "40 Licks" tour to headline the show, which will also feature pop star Justin Timberlake, Australian hard rock band AC/DC and Canada's The Guess Who. It will be hosted by actors Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi.

"We're very happy to tell you that we're coming to play on July 30 in a great concert for the people and city of Toronto to help bring back the energy to our favorite city," Stones frontman Mick Jagger said in a taped message from Munich.

SARS killed 38 people in Toronto and, coupled with a brief World Health Organization advisory to avoid the city, took a devastating economic toll.

Tourists stayed away in droves, hotels faced gaping vacancy rates and restaurants and tour operators suffered and are still suffering.

The impact of SARS also spilled over into the broader economy and shoved the jobless rate higher in May.

The Rolling Stones show is the latest in a campaign to promote Canada's largest city. On Saturday, Canadian acts including Avril Lavigne and the Barenaked Ladies played at a Concert for Toronto.

"This is the day we tell the world, Toronto is back," Deputy Prime Minister John Manley said on Tuesday. "Let this be the biggest invasion of Canada from the United States since the War of 1812. Bring them on."

Manley said the government would kick in C$3.5 million to help stage the concert.

The Rolling Stones have long had ties with Toronto. They rehearsed in the city in 2002 for their current tour, as well as for the Voodoo Lounge tour in 1994 and for the Bridges to Babylon tour in 1997.

The veteran British rockers have a tradition of popping up to play secret gigs in the city during their stay. Earlier this year, the group canceled their first-ever tour to China because of the SARS outbreak.

The July 30 concert will be held at Downsview Park, a disused air base where Pope John Paul II held a mass for an estimated 800,000 people last July.

Tickets will cost C$21.50 ($16) and net proceeds will go to a fund for tourism and healthcare workers.

Organizers said they expect about 350,000 people at the eight-hour concert which starts on a weekday afternoon.

Miramax Goes to Bat with 'Damn Yankees' Remake

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Whatever Harvey wants, Harvey gets. And right now, Miramax Films co-chairman Harvey Weinstein wants to hit another one out of the park with a musical.
 
Basking in the razzle-dazzle success of "Chicago," Miramax's highest-grossing film ever, the studio has bought rights for the remake of another Broadway song-and-dance favorite, the baseball fable "Damn Yankees," the studio said on Tuesday.

And the Walt Disney Co.-owned distributor still has a deal in the works to develop an updated film version of the stage musical "Guys and Dolls," a studio source said.

The "Chicago" producing team of Craig Zadan and Neil Meron is on board for both projects, with Miramax planning to go to bat with "Damn Yankees" first, the studio said.

The Tony Award-winning musical, which opened on Broadway in 1955, centers on a fan who sells his soul to help his hapless team, the Washington Senators, win the American League pennant from the unbeatable Yankees.

Actor Ray Walston won a Tony for his performance as Mr. Applegate, the devil, and actress-dancer Gwen Verdon won the Tony as the seductress Lola ("Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets"), roles both performers re-created in the 1958 Warner Bros. film adaptation that co-starred Tab Hunter.

The show features music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross and a book by George Abbott and Douglass Wallop, based on Wallop's novel "The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant." The original production was choreographed by the late Bob Fosse, who also arranged the dancing for "Chicago."

A 1994 stage revival of "Yankees," choreographed by Rob Marshall, the Oscar-nominated director of "Chicago," starred Bebe Neuwirth and Victor Garber (later replaced by Jerry Lewis).

"I see us updating 'Damn Yankees,' modernizing it, and really having fun with the role of the devil," Weinstein said in a statement. No decisions about casting for the Miramax remake have been made.

Meanwhile, Miramax is pursuing a deal to bring the stage musical "Guys and Doll" back to the big screen. Featuring such numbers as "Luck Be a Lady" and "Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat," the Frank Loesser musical centers on the unlikely romance between a high-stakes gambler and a female missionary.

The show had a highly successful Broadway run in the 1950s and was made into a movie in 1955 starring Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra and Jean Simmons.

Miramax's newfound interest in musicals follows on the heels of the studio's success with its big-screen adaptation of "Chicago," which starred Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones as a pair of homicidal show girls.

Based on a stage production that debuted on Broadway in the 1970s, "Chicago" generated nearly $169 million in U.S. ticket sales alone, marking the biggest box-office success for Miramax to date, and won the Oscar as best picture.

The DVD release of the film is set for August, including an extra song-and-dance number cut from the original movie, but Miramax has decided against a renewed theatrical run as previously contemplated, the source said.

...So without further adieu, here are the new Video and DVD Releases for Tuesday, June 24th, 2003:

Kangaroo Jack (PG) - A talking kangaroo takes money from some dumb guys. (Jerry O'Connell, Anthony Anderson)

The Hours (PG-13) - Three women in different eras all affected by one novel. (Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, Meryl Streep)

Punch-Drunk Love (R) - Single guy finally finds the right woman. (Adam Sandler, Emily Watson, Philip Seymour Hoffman)

Dark Blue (R) - A "dirty" cop fights for his life. (Kurt Russell, Ving Raines)

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (R) - Bounty hunters track down person behind biochemical attack. (David Lucas (voice) [Spike Spiegel], Beau Billingslea (voice) [Jet Black], Jennifer Hale (voice) [Elektra])

Lost In La Mancha (R) - The 'making of' Terry Gilliam's failed Don Quixote movie. (Jeff Bridges (voice) [Narrator], Terry Gilliam, Johnny Depp)

Hercules: The Legendary Journeys - Season 1 (Not Rated) - The complete first season of the TV series Hercules. (Kevin Sorbo, Michael Hunt)

Live From Baghdad (Not Rated) - CNN producers report from Baghdad during 1991 Gulf War. (Michael Keaton [Robert Weiner], Helena Bonham Carter [Ingrid Formanek], Joshua Leonard)

Soul Food: The Complete First Season (Not Rated) - The complete first season of the TV show Soul Food. (Rockmond Dunbar, Irma P. Hall, Darrin Dewitt Henson)

Get the popcorn and I'll meet you on the couch!

SPIKE THIS

Spike Jones Jr., son of late musical funnyman Spike Jones, lending his support to Viacom in its battle with Spike Lee over the proposed name change of TNN to Spike TV. The younger Jones says its "frightening" that Lee is claiming sole ownership of the moniker.

Germany recalls Kennedy's iconic Berlin speech

BERLIN (AFP) - With just four words, US president John F. Kennedy talked himself into Cold War history in a moving speech 60 years ago this week in the heart of divided Berlin.

"Ich bin ein Berliner," the president uttered to a rapturous response. His words went round the world. Berlin was safe, it seemed.

The city will Wednesday commemorate the occasion with the formal opening of an exhibition on Kennedy's June 26, 1963 visit and what it meant then and now for US-German relations.

On Thursday, his speech will be broadcast over loudspeakers at the precise time, 6.44 pm, that he delivered it from the balcony of the town hall in the Schoeneberg district of Berlin.

"Visiting the frontline city was an important signal on the relationship," said Andreas Etges, who put together the exhibition in the German Historical Museum.

The president was greeted like a pop star. Hundreds of thousands turned out to welcome his motorcade during his eight-hour visit. "It was an overwhelming occasion," said Etges.

It was June 1963. Berlin was nervous about its future on the dividing line between communist east and capitalist west. The Cold War was at its height.

The previous summer, the United States and Soviet Union nearly went to war in the Cuban missile crisis. A year earlier, communist East Germany had built the Berlin Wall, a scar through the heart of the city.

Kennedy was on a goodwill tour of Europe when he visited Berlin. He saw the Wall twice close at hand, once draped from the other side with a huge East German flag, the second time from Checkpoint Charlie, the allied crossing point.

Struck by the images and impressed by the size of an expectant crowd, some of whom had camped out overnight, he reworked his prepared speech.

Whereas the East-West mood had been one of tentative moves toward detente, he repeatedly lashed out at communism in the strongest terms.

At the end, Kennedy uttered the famous words: "All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner'."

He had written out the sentence phonetically to pronounce it correctly with his Boston accent: 'Ish bin ine bearLEANar.'

The president was moved by the emotion that greeted his words. His advisor McGeorge Bundy, worried about raising East-West tensions, was less enamoured. "Mr President, I think you went too far," Bundy said, according to Kennedy's translator.

Kennedy subsequently toned down his speech that afternoon at West Berlin's main university, before leaving the city en route for Ireland.

German grammar enthusiasts often point out that Kennedy's phrase 'Ich bin ein Berliner' actually compares him to a doughnut, a Berliner being a popular name for the patisserie.

For Berliners, the emotion of the occasion overwhelmed such thoughts.

Etges said that when he spoke to witnesses for his exhibition, "their eyes were still aglow."

Five months later, in November 1963, Kennedy was assassinated. The Berlin Wall stood for another quarter of a century until October 1989.

US-German relations have changed since Kennedy's day.

President Richard Nixon's motorcade was spattered with paint in protest at the Vietnam War when he came calling in 1969.

Current President George W. Bush was greeted with a banner declaring 'You are no Berliner' because of his policy on Iraq when he visited last year, and relations are only inching now above freezing-point after Germany's spirited opposition to the US-led war on Baghdad.

The Kennedy exhibition Wednesday will be opened by German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and US ambassador Dan Coats.

Coats will also speak at Schoeneberg town hall Thursday after the replay of the speech, to be followed by an evening of open-air music.

New 'Tomb Raider' Game Tweaks Franchise

LOS ANGELES - Lara Croft has finally learned that there's more than one way to raid a tomb.

The sixth and latest "Tomb Raider" video game title, "The Angel of Darkness," hits stores this week. Now fans will decide whether the game's latest innovations have freshened the franchise or alienated players with too many changes.

"For us to take Lara and put her in a racing car, it would have been very simple to do. But that isn't 'Tomb Raider,'" said game co-creator Adrian Smith, operations director of British-based Core Design. "People buy this game with some kind of expectancy of what they're getting."

"Angel," available for PlayStation 2 and PC, features Croft being framed for the murder of a rival. She then tries to simultaneously prove her innocence and stop an evil cult while hiding in catacombs beneath Paris.

Apart from dramatically improving the graphics, which make the bombshell Croft look more lifelike, Croft can now sneak through levels, hiding in the shadows and ducking behind walls, instead of engaging other characters in battle. Of course, you also can still choose to go in with both her signature thigh-strapped guns blazing.

"Angel" also has added more open-ended gameplay. Like a child's "Choose Your Own Adventure" novel, players now can make decisions that lead the story in varying directions, rather than follow traditional linear storytelling.

For the first time, Croft also must interact with non-playable characters, asking for advice on which path to choose. There are multiple ways to solve the game, so players may play again to pick different options. That's not something new to gaming, but it is to "Tomb Raider."

"It adds a little bit of longevity to the game," Smith said. "So people can go back and talk to Pierre rather than talk to the janitor. Both will tell you to go to the same building, but one may give you a key to go one route and the other might tell you to go in the back door."

Some fans playing the game after it debuted Friday praised the new graphics, but had mixed feelings about other changes.

"As the games have progressed there have been more and more confusing commands, more in-game characters and plots to keep up with, and the story lines increasingly lack creativity," said Kelly Johnson, 17, of Columbus, Ga. "The new equipment is nice, but there's just too much of it."

Still, Johnson was optimistic about "Angel": "I'd have to say the alternate ways to finish a level would be the most enticing."

In a "Tomb Raider" chat room, one fan posting under the name "SCJX" described the gameplay as "awesome," but complained that the story started slow: "I feel a little like I'm playing a role-playing game some of the time, though. Running around Paris searching for an address so I can talk to someone, blah, blah, blah. I'm still hoping for some vast tombs and blasting action."

Updating a popular game franchise is a tightrope for many designers. Mess with a format too much and fans revolt, like 1988's "Zelda II: The Adventure of Link," which robbed players of their coveted topdown gameplay in favor of "Super Mario Bros."-style side-scrolling action.

Meanwhile, the same-old, same-old treatment can lead to stagnation. The popular "Megaman" series has spawned more than a dozen sequels since the 1980s, but its following has faded as fans complained that the action never evolved enough from one title to the next.

Some drastic changes work miracles. "Grand Theft Auto 3" is virtually indistinguishable from "Grand Theft Auto 2" — with substantially more detail, closer "camera" angles and extreme depictions of carnage. Still, "GTA3" became wildly more popular than its predecessor.

In the new "Tomb Raider," another important change is not in the player's hands. While the shapely Croft was the only playable character in the previous games, this time a muscular new hero named Kurtis Trent will take the lead later in the story. Croft is relegated to the sidelines.

"People have always wanted a love interest for Lara and while we don't obviously have them shack up, so to speak, there's some sexual tension there," said Paul Baldwin, marketing executive with "Tomb Raider" publisher Eidos Interactive. "There are some cut-scenes when they first meet eyeing each other and some caressing. Kurtis takes her weapons away and goes for a little roller coaster ride down Lara's curved body."

That's a ride, developers think, that fans will be willing to take.

Liz Phair Goes Pop, Setting Off Debate

NEW YORK - The first time Liz Phair pooled her allowance money to buy a record, years before she became an indie rock queen, she bought "Saturday Night" by the bubblegum band Bay City Rollers.

That's worth remembering now that the 36-year-old singer has set off an extraordinary debate in the rock world simply by making a disc designed to be enjoyed by as many people as possible.

Some fans feel betrayed, others intrigued. All can judge for themselves when the disc, her first in five years, is released today (Tuesday).

Titled "Liz Phair," the cover features the star with teased blonde hair and a semi-dressed pose covered up by a strategically placed guitar. Among the 14 glossy pop-rock songs are four co-written with the Matrix, the hitmaking songwriting team behind Avril Lavigne's smash, "Complicated."

Her debut a decade ago, on the other hand, was decidedly lo-fi. Complete with frank sexual talk, "Exile in Guyville" was a brash, feminine response to a classic Rolling Stones album. Critics and hipsters loved it, saying it captured the mood of many women in their 20s.

Will the real Liz Phair please stand up?

"I'm the same person I always was," Phair told The Associated Press in a recent interview. "I just lost the whole `cool school' thing."

By courting pop success, some critics have essentially called her a sellout. In a lengthy essay in The New York Times on Sunday, writer Meghan O'Rourke said Phair "has committed an embarrassing form of career suicide."

"Ms. Phair often sounds desperate or clueless," O'Rourke wrote. "The album has some of the same weird self-oblivion of a middle-aged man in a mid-life crisis and a new Corvette."

Others differ. Jim Farber in the New York Daily News said the disc's slickness covers up Phair's weaknesses as a singer and player. "The added elements have made her songs catchier and her vocals more compelling," he wrote.

Phair recorded and shelved three different albums in the past five years, as she got divorced and moved with her 6-year-old son from her native Chicago area to Los Angeles, the cradle of stardom.

The last try was a somewhat depressing disc produced by Michael Penn, husband of mopey songwriter Aimee Mann. Phair took it to the president of Capitol Records, Andy Slater, who said it was a good album critics would like.

Phair knew a lukewarm record company usually dooms an album to failure. "I really wanted you to be a little more excited than, `It'll be fine,'" she told Slater.

As a single mom living in an expensive new area, Phair was eager to take a big swing at success and agreed to work with the Matrix. "Exile in Guyville" and its 1994 followup, "Whip Smart," both sold just under 400,000 copies, and 1998's "whitechocolatespaceegg" sold 266,000 copies — respectable if you're a struggling artist-type, but not on the level of a major star.

Phair believes working with others has amplified, not concealed, her personality. She said she's not turning her back on the woman who wrote "Exile in Guyville."

"What did you do in your 20s?" she said. "Oh, I wrote one of the most influential albums of the '90s. It's awesome. But it shouldn't stop you" from trying different things, she said.

Worrying about critics can be as much of a trap as overthinking the pop marketplace. Phair said she occasionally felt paralyzed as a writer in the mid-1990s worrying whether her songs were hip enough.
 
Still, she doesn't dismiss fans who don't like what she's doing.

"Of course, I care," she said. "I like them and I'd like them to like me. If they don't, that's fine. I don't like every record. I hope they don't reject me as a lifelong artist. I think that's a little bit spastic."

Phair talked just hours before attending a concert by Radiohead, the ultimate critic's band. But she's still in touch with the little girl who sang along to "Saturday Night."

"I would never want to give up my `indie-ness,'" she said. "I just don't understand why you have to be one or the other. I like highbrow and lowbrow."

Phair is less eager to talk about the provocative photos being used to sell her disc, saying they weren't her idea. She's never been shy about using her sexuality; on `Exile,' she doctored her vocals to sound as girlish as possible when talking dirty.

The new album has one song explicit enough to make Mick Jagger blush. She also sings about picking up a guy nine years younger for sex and about the allure of infidelity.

Yet a song with nothing to do about sex packs the biggest emotional wallop. "Little Digger" describes the wrenching confusion of a young boy seeing his divorced mom with another man for the first time.

"My goal, if I have one as an artist, has always been to expand the acceptable rules for women and girls," Phair said.

"One of the things that was hard for me growing up was older women who did not talk about things that they felt outside of an accepted way of talking," she said. "I think it's important to allow yourself to say things that are not OK."

New CD Releases for Tuesday June 24, 2003

* BLACKIE & THE RODEO KINGS Bark (True North)
* BLU CANTRELL Bittersweet (Arista)
* DONALD FAGAN Kamakiriad (DVD Audio) (Rhino)
* ERYKAH BADU Worldwide Underground (EP) (Motown)
* FLAMING LIPS Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (Warner)
* JIMMY WAYNE Jimmy Wayne (Dreamworks Nashville)
* MICHELLE BRANCH Hotel Paper (Warner)
* MOTION CITY SOUNDTRACK I Am The Movie (Epitaph)
* SHOCURE Evilution (Linus Entertainment)
* SKILLZ I Ain't Mad No More (MCA)
* THE LOCUST Plague Soundscapes (Anti/Epitaph)
* WEBB BROTHERS Webb Brothers (Warner International)

Free Toronto Stones Show a Go for July 30

TORONTO (Billboard) - A massive free Rolling Stones concert has been scheduled for July 30 in Toronto.

The outdoor show is aimed at giving the city an economic boost in the wake of the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak earlier in the year. Although the official announcement is expected Tuesday, a taped video message from the band due to be played during a press conference was shown to several local media outlets over the weekend.

"We're happy to tell you that we're coming to play on July 30 in a great concert for the people in the city of Toronto, to help bring back the energy to our favorite city," Stones frontman Mick Jagger says in the message taped at the site of the Stones' recent show in Munich.

The event will take place in the docklands area of the city, with the downtown skyline as a backdrop. It is estimated that 10 to 15 supporting acts will be announced.

The Stones show will be the second music event meant to repair the reputation of the Canadian city, which is reeling from the impact and stigma of SARS. On Saturday, 11 acts, including Sum 41, Avril Lavigne, Diana Krall, Barenaked Ladies, Sarah McLachlan and the Tragically Hip, performed during the Concert for Toronto at the Skydome and Air Canada Center.

SARS has resulted in several artists canceling or rescheduling appearances in Toronto in recent months, including Elton John and Billy Joel, Michelle Branch and Kelly Clarkson. The mysterious disease is responsible for 38 deaths in the greater Toronto area.

Apple Unveils G5 Computer, Doubles Power

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Computer Inc. on Monday introduced new Macintosh computers that use its "G5" microprocessor, a design by International Business MachinesCorp. that can handle twice as much data at once as traditional PC microchips.

The Cupertino, California-based computer maker also said at a developer conference in San Francisco that its new online music store had sold 5 million song downloads since its inception eight weeks ago, or an average of 625,000 songs a week or more than 89,000 songs a day.

"It looks like it's slowing a little bit, but that was expected," said Rob Enderle, an analyst with market research firm Forrester, of the rate at which online songs are selling.

Apple plans in August to begin selling three models of desktop computers based on the G5 chip, which can manage 64 bits of data at once, compared to 32 bits for traditional home computers.

Chief Executive Steve Jobs told the developers that with the new Macintoshes Apple has topped its main competition, Microsoft Corp. Windows-based PCs, which use chipsfrom Intel Corp. and AMD that run at faster rates -- measured in gigahertz -- than those in current Macintoshes.

"We can clearly say we've caught up with the PC and passed them," said Jobs, dressed in his trademark outfit of jeans and a black shirt, to applause from an audience of 3,800.

With an August launch, Apple will become the first to introduce a personal computer with a 64-bit chip, just beating to the punch Advanced Micro Devices Inc., which plans in September to launch a 64-bit chip for desktop PCs running Windows.

There has been speculation that Apple would eventually use Intel chips and the announcement on Monday does not chance that, Enderle said, adding that he still expected Apple to announce next year it will use Intel chips.

"I think chances are like 8 out of 10 they will go with Intel," Enderle said. "I know that he's (Jobs) been over at Intel an awful lot and Intel has been over with him quite a bit."

A spokesman for Apple declined to comment.

Whether consumers will embrace the new technology quickly is an open question, however, since to date only business machines meant to manage networks have used similar chips.

Most advances in home PC chips so far have simply made them run faster, but a 64-bit chip is fundamentally different. To take full advantage of the new chip design, software must be rewritten, although the Apple/IBM and AMD chips are built to be compatible with older software, as well.

Designing a microprocessor is a long, complex process and manufacturing them is expensive. Additionally, Jobs said that G5 chips running at 3.0 gigahertz are due out within the next 12 months.

Chip companies publish road maps, typically measured in years, detailing how long a certain chip will be produced and when successive iterations of a chip will be available.

Phil Schiller, head of worldwide marketing for Apple, declined to comment on the specific length of the road map between Apple and IBM, except to say: "There's a long road map here. This is the beginning of many things to come."

The Power Mac G5 starts at $1,999, with a 1.6 gigahertz PowerPC G5. The Power Mac G5 with a 1.8 gigahertz processor starts at $2,399, while the top of the line Power Mac G5, with dual 2.0 gigahertz processors, starts at $2,999, Apple said.

Adam Sandler Weds Jackie Titone in Calif.

MALIBU, Calif. - Actor Adam Sandler wed Jackie Titone on Sunday in an outdoor ceremony that was attended by celebrity friends and his pet bulldog dressed in a custom tuxedo.

"Sandler got married," the comic's Web site said. "Woopity Doo!" No other details were immediately available.

Calls to Sandler's publicist Cindy Guagenti were not immediately returned Sunday night.

Photographs of the nuptials showed the "Wedding Singer" star in a black tuxedo and white yarmulke, and Titone in a white gown with spaghetti straps, standing among hanging pale rose bouquets and chairs draped with pink satin.

Sandler's dog, Meatball, was shown in one picture in a black tuxedo jacket.

It was the first marriage for Sandler 36, and Titone, 28.

Titone has appeared in Sandler's movies, including as a waitress in "Big Daddy," and an angel in "Little Nicky."

Pamela Anderson's Anime Alter Ego: 'Stripperella'

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former "Baywatch" beauty Pamela Anderson is making her animation debut as a superhero who dances in a strip club, but she demanded and received a no-nudity clause for her cartoon alter ego.

As a result, the upcoming cable series "Stripperella" features lots of cartoon cleavage and sexual innuendo -- she is after all "Secret Agent 69" -- but Anderson insists the show could be rated PG.

"It's harmless. It's only a cartoon," the actress told Reuters in a recent interview to promote the series, created by Marvel Comics icon Stan Lee, the man who beefed up the Hulk and had Spider-Man climbing walls.

"We came up with a concept, and we just kind of made it really, really silly, and we both can't believe it's going to be on the air."

The series is due to premiere June 26 on TNN, the Viacom Inc.-owned cable channel planning -- despite a legal challenge -- to relaunch itself this month as Spike TV, with a new slate of programming tailored to men.

The show's concept is pretty simple. It centers on buxom exotic dancer Erotica Jones, an Anderson-esque character voiced by the actress who leads a double life as the masked superhero Stripperella. She's a stripper by night, a crime fighter by later at night and the cartoon character even has the same tatoos as the real-life Anderson.

BUXOM CRIME FIGHTER

Using her sex appeal to cloud the minds of male crooks, she comes equipped with special gadgets, such as her lipstick laser and wall-climbing stiletto heels. Her breasts are natural lie detectors and her legs are powerful weapons she wraps around the heads of her foes in a move she calls the "scissor-ella."

"I'm very proud of Stripperella," Anderson says. "She's my alter ego -- strong, smart and sexy and, let's face it, a bit of a slut."

In the premiere episode, Stripperella battles the evil plastic surgeon Dr. Cesarian, who is deliberately ruining the figures of supermodels and has "booby-trapped" his latest victim with an exploding breast implant.

Still, Anderson said the series is far from pornographic and at her insistence contains no nudity -- employing cartoon pixilation and other devices to keep the body parts blurred and the animation tasteful.

For example, "I do a dance in a martini glass, and the bubbles are strategically placed," she said.

A number of celebrities lend their voices to some of the recurring characters, including Mark Hamill of "Star Wars" fame and Anderson's "boyfriend" Kid Rock, who also wrote and performs the theme song.

Canadian-born Anderson, 35, sprang to world fame as lifeguard CJ Parker on the TV series "Baywatch" and went on to produce and star in the syndicated TV series "V.I.P.," playing a beautiful celebrity bodyguard.

LICENSING IMAGE

This week, she signed a partnership agreement with United Licensing Group to develop brand merchandise such as lingerie, jewelry, swimsuits and jeans that will carry a Pamela Anderson designer label, according to her manager, Hedda Moye.

Moye said the licensing deal and a new Web site are part of Anderson's plan to develop business ventures that allow her to cash in on her celebrity while spending more time at home with her two young sons, Brandon, 7, and Dylan, 5.
 
Anderson said her kids have seen early clips from her cartoon series but take it all in stride, with Brandon comparing her unfavorably to "Rugrats" character Angelica Pickles. "He said, 'Angelica is a very good actor, a very good character, and she's much more famous than you, Mom,"' Anderson recalled with a laugh.

ROCK THE CASH REGISTER

Streetcore, the final album from late Clash frontman Joe Strummer, scheduled to hit record stores on October 7.

The Lord Comes A Calling

Leading off this week's news are more details on what is sure to be one of the biggest DVD releases of the year, if not the biggest, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers - Extended Edition. Replicating the same release pattern as The Fellowship of the Ring last year (if it ain't broke, don't fix it), New Line Home Entertainment will release the theatrical cut as a two-disc set in August, followed by this four-disc behemoth on November 18th.

In addition to a newly-expanded cut of the film featuring over 40 minutes of new material, the extras are vast. The feature is spread over the first two discs, with four audio commentaries by director Peter Jackson and the writers, the second with the design team, the third with the production team and the four with the cast. The feature is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital Surround EX and DTS 6.1 ES Discrete soundtracks.

Disc three features The Appendices: Adapting the book into a screenplay and planning the film, the design and inspiration for locations in Middle-earth storyboards to pre-visualization, a Weta Workshop visit to see the sculptors in action as they create the weapons, armor, creatures and miniatures from the film, an "Atlas of Middle-Earth," an additional interactive map of New Zealand highlighting the location scouting process, multiple featurettes including "Sending Actors to Battle" (preparation for sword fighting), "Post-Production" (editing it all together) and "Principal Photography" (stories from the set), a look at the digital effects including motion capture and "Massive" (a program to create armies of Orcs), additional "Bigatures" (a close-up look at the detailed miniatures used in the film), a sound design demonstration, still galleries of art and slideshows with commentaries by the artists plus additional behind-the-scenes photographs and personal cast photos. Also included are extensive ROM extras to be announced. Retail is $39.95.

Last but not least, New Line will also release a special Gift Set of the Extended Edition, which also streets on November 18th. Expect the same great extras above plus a Collectible Gollum polystone statue created by Sideshow Weta, "The Evolution of Gollum" exclusive documentary on the Weta Workshop and how the Gollum statue was created, a printed companion piece showing how Gollum evolved from pencil sketch to sculpted maquette to digital character, and collectible packaging.

'Hulk' Transforms Into Box Office Champ

LOS ANGELES - "The Hulk" was a monster at the box office in its debut weekend, with the comic-book adaptation taking in a June opening record of $62.6 million.

The action flick about a scientist turned into a raging green beast by a lab accident took over the top box-office spot from the animated fish tale "Finding Nemo," which slipped to second place with a weekend take of $20.5 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The weekend's other new wide releases opened quietly. Rob Reiner's romantic comedy "Alex & Emma," starring Kate Hudson and Luke Wilson, debuted at No. 7 with $6.2 million.

"From Justin to Kelly," a romance starring "American Idol" winner Kelly Clarkson and runner-up Justin Guarini, opened at No. 11 with only $2.9 million.

"The Hulk" had the highest gross ever for a June opening, surpassing the previous record of $54.9 million for "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me." But taking today's higher admission prices into account, "Austin Powers" sold slightly more tickets in its opening weekend than "The Hulk."

"The Hulk," starring Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly and Nick Nolte, was directed by Ang Lee, best known for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." Many critics credited Lee with bringing a deeper sense of brooding character to the movie than other comic-book adaptations have had.

Distributor Universal Studios said the opening-weekend audience was evenly split between people under and over 25, as the movie drew the young action-flick crowd as well as adults who remember the comic book and "Incredible Hulk" TV series.

Despite the June record, revenue for "The Hulk" came in well below that