Red Green says goodbye to Possum Lodge

Don your plaid and get out the duct tape! The final Red Green Show will be taped before a live audience in Toronto on Saturday.

The sold-out show marks the end of 15 years of Canadian TV history; it's the last instalment of the final season of the show, which airs Friday nights on CBC TV.

Comedian Steve Smith originally created the Red Green character for a CHCH series out of Hamilton, Ont., Smith and Smith. It starred Smith and his wife, Morag.

The show, about the handyman with the philosophy "If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy" moved from one network to another before finding a home on CBC.

Behind the Scenes: Red Green Show
It attracts about one million viewers a week and is taped at Harbourside studios in Toronto before a live audience where fans often wear plaid shirts and carry a roll of duct tape to fit in with the Possum Lodge atmosphere. A fan club boasts about 100,000 members.

The show created a host of memorable characters, including his straight-man nephew Harold, played by Patrick McKenna, and the light-fingered Mike Hamar, played by Wayne Robson.

Red Green's greatest legacies may be the thousands of uses he has found for duct tape, and the Possum Lodge Man's Prayer: "I'm a man...But I can change...If I have to...I guess."

Smith says that after 300 episodes and 9,500 pages of script, he's not going to miss being Red Green.

"I won't miss him, not even slightly," he said in an interview with the Hamilton Spectator. "It's been so great, honestly. It's all positive memories for me, and if I felt sad, it would be kind of like I'm greedy, that I wanted more of that. I don't think there is more. I don't think there could be more and I sure don't need more or expect more."

Smith, a resident of Hamilton, plans to continue writing and running S&S Productions, which produced the Red Green Show.

He is a script consultant on the upcoming CTV comedy Jeff, Ltd. and plans to get more involved in the S&S animated program, Sons of Butcher for the Comedy Network.

Smith revealed that the final episode will give fans a video glimpse into what the future holds for the characters who hung around Possum Lodge with Red.

"It will be a kind of where-are-they-now thing where we fast forward 10 years ahead," Smith says. "I really want the fans to feel satisfied and know what happened to the characters and that everybody's OK and the lodge still exists somewhere. It's just not on TV anymore."

The final show will air in March.

'Wyrd Sisters' cannot stop Harry Potter

An Ontario judge has dismissed a motion by a Winnipeg band that would have blocked the release of the new Harry Potter movie in Canada.

Winnipeg folk group the Wyrd Sisters was in court Friday asking for an injunction to block the Nov. 18 release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

The group argued in court that they've owned the trademark to the name in Canada since 1990, and that release of the movie with a band purporting to have the same name will ruin their reputation.

In the J.K. Rowling book, there is a band called the Weird Sisters, a term taken from Shakespeare. A band also appears in the movie, played by members of Radiohead and Pulp; however, references to the band's name have been removed.

That doesn't matter, argued Kimberly Townley Smith who represents the Winnipeg group. She said the fact that people could confuse the two groups is damaging to the group's founder.

"The problem is, she's first. She has the right to use it. She's the Wyrd Sisters and now, when she goes out, people are going to think that she's them and worse, who is this person ripping off Harry Potter?"

Harry Potter-related merchandise is using the group's name and could create still more confusion, she said.

But Justice Colin Campbell ruled the public wouldn't confuse three characters from the film with the real-life band.

The injunction application is part of a $40-million US lawsuit the band filed in September against Warner Brothers — the studio distributing the film — and the three famous British musicians acting in the movie: Pulp's frontman Jarvis Cocker and Radiohead's guitarist Jonny Greenwood and drummer Phil Selway.

Warner says it tried to reach a deal with the Juno-nominated group to use the name, but they were unable to come to an agreement.

Websites for Radiohead and Potter fans are calling the court case nothing more than a publicity stunt. But Wyrd Sister Kim Baryluk says it is about protecting her life's work.

"We're Canadian citizens. We have a business. We have a right to use that business name how we see fit. And the way WB approached us was to effectively say we don't have that right and they've made life very difficult for me," she said.

Baryluk said she would be satisfied if Warner Bros. added a line in the credits of the movie saying: the real Wyrd Sisters live in Canada.

Scott, Grace locked on 'Cockblocker'

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Seann William Scott and Topher Grace are attached to star in a comedy with the MPAA-challenged title of "Cockblocker."

The Paramount Pictures story follows a guy (Grace) who meets the girl of his dreams, only to find out that her best friend happens to be her ex-boyfriend (Scott).

The studio beat out three other studios for the project, which will be written by Greg Coolidge, whose only produced credit is Disney's "Sorority Boys." Sources say his deal was worth a $1.25 million advance against a $1.85 million payout if the film is produced.

The intent is to shoot "Cockblocker" next year in partnership with Paramount's sibling studio MTV Films.

Scott was last in theaters with "The Dukes of Hazzard." Grace, best known for his role as Eric on Fox's "That 70's Show," is gearing up to star in "Spider-Man 3."

Anne Hathaway Turns Romance Novelist in "Becoming Jane"

Anne Hathaway, most recognized from The Princess Diaries, is about to play celebrated author Jane Austen, in Becoming Jane. Empire Online reports the actress, who turns 23 next weekend, will star as the British writer who has had many of her novels become films, such as Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. "I'm attached to it and we're trying to get financing for it," says Hathaway. "Jane Austen is one of the most special literary figures. I don't want to short change her in any way." The movie will focus on a part of Austen’s life which inspired the epic romance found in her writing.

McCready Gets Some Good News

Mindy McCready has one less problem to worry about.

Prosecutors in Arizona dismissed two criminal charges against the singer Friday that stem from a June incident involving an allegedly stolen pickup truck. McCready had been slapped with charges of hindering prosecution and unlawful use of means of transportation.

Although few details of the case have publicly released, police had said McCready and a man had taken a pickup truck from a woman without permission. The case also involved an attempt to purchase two speedboats worth more than $1 million.

All along, McCready blamed the incident on a con man, claiming she was actually trying to help police catch him.

Though she no longer has to contend with those charges, McCready still has plenty of issues to resolve.

The "Guys Do it All the Time" singer is due back in court on Nov. 14 for a probation violation hearing.

McCready was jailed in Florida in August after a warrant was issued for her arrest following her second violation.

The singer was previously busted on a DUI charge in May and was convicted of fraudulently obtaining prescription painkillers in November 2004.

On top of her legal problems, McCready has attempted suicide twice in the past several months by overdosing on a mixture of pills and wine.

The singer revealed that she initially tried to kill herself after learning that she was pregnant with her on-again, off-again boyfriend William McKnight's baby.

McKnight was charged with attempted murder after he beat and almost choked McCready to death after ambushing her in her home, just days after her drunken driving arrest.

Despite the violent attack that almost ended her life, McCready claims she still loves McKnight and is unwilling to give up on their relationship.

During an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show Thursday, she admitted to spending time with him on several occasions since learning she was carrying his child, though they are technically not supposed to see each other.

McCready attributed McKnight's violence to drug use, but said she did not expect him to hit her again. However, she said she was bothered by his lack of remorse over the attack.

"I wanted him to take responsibility for it," she said. "I wanted him to be extremely sorry for it."

But because McKnight, in McCready's words, "doesn't think that he's done very much wrong," she said that she has had trouble recovering emotionally from the incident.

"As long as I live, I will never get over it," she told Winfrey. "I will never forget it. And I will forever be haunted by it."

Phil Collins says open to Genesis reunion

TEL AVIV, Israel (Reuters) - British singer and songwriter Phil Collins said on Sunday he would be open to a reunion of his old band Genesis, a day before he is set to perform in Israel as part of his what he calls his final tour.

"I'm open for it," said Collins, 54, the most prominent international music star to perform in Israel since the start of a Palestinian uprising more than five years ago.

"I'm happy to sit behind the drums and let Peter (Gabriel) be the singer. If (a reunion) happens, I'll be there. If it doesn't happen ... it would just be because there are too many things in the way," Collins told reporters in Tel Aviv.

Collins' concert on Monday in Jaffa, a quarter of Tel Aviv, is part of his "First Final Farewell Tour." He said that he would stop touring "soon" in order to be able to spend more time with his family, but would like to continue to record music.

Collins said he wasn't afraid in Israel, where Israeli-Palestinian violence has raged for more than five years, although attacks have largely decreased during the past year since a February truce. He performed in Lebanon a day earlier.

"I wish it wasn't like this," Collins said of the conflict. "I sit and watch stuff on the television, I think, 'Why, why, why."'

Groups like progressive rockers Jethro Tull, boy band Westlife and metal bands Megadeth and the Scorpions, have performed in Israel during the uprising. Other artists, such as Madonna, have canceled planned concerts, though she visited Israel last year on a Kabbalah pilgrimage.

The progressive rock group Genesis formed in 1967 and were internationally successful for more than 30 years. Collins, the band's first drummer, took over as singer after Gabriel quit the group in 1975 to become a solo artist.

Collins left in 1996 to concentrate on his own solo career having already scored solo hits in the 1980s with "Against All Odds" and "In the Air Tonight."

After a shuffle of band members, including an Israeli drummer, Genesis finally called it quits in 1998.

Fab Four uncovered in hefty tome

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - In the beginning there was John, the scruffy rebel who dazzled the good burghers of Liverpool with song and story. Then came Paul, the doe-eyed champion of all things bright and chirpy. Then there were George, the quiet one, and Ringo, who was -- well, Ringo.

The four looked out onto the world and saw that it needed righteous noise, and they provided it in great abundance so that all could be well.

Nearly half a century after the Fab Four first came together, the story of the Beatles has passed into something like mythology, a hero cycle for moderns, legendary history from the distant days before the iPod.

Bob Spitz's vast biography of the band, called, simply enough, "The Beatles," has its worshipful moments as befits a story with its world-changing moments and larger-than-life players. It also ventures into iconoclasm at times, so much so that some of the faithful in blogland may be calling for his head. George not a saint? Paul an egomaniac? John a junkie? Is this guy a Blue Meanie or what?

At its best moments -- and there are many good ones -- Spitz's book focuses on moments that everyone of a certain age can remember and adds depth and detail to them, reminding us that pivotal events often are born of accident. The band, for instance, had good reason to be tired of touring when they quit the road in summer 1966. The official explanation that they did so to concentrate on mastering studio recording doesn't acknowledge their close brushes with death at the hands of deranged fans and detractors, malfunctioning aircraft and Imelda Marcos' soldiers, all of which Spitz covers in detail.

Everyone knows, too, that the Beatles were rebels who changed the world; Spitz lends a few particulars to the trope, noting that, for another instance, the pre-Fab Quarrymen braved howling mobs of traditional jazz fans when they dared play rock 'n' roll at the Cavern -- a place now enshrined in their tale but up until then hostile to anything that smacked of a rock-steady beat.

Everyone might not know what Spitz reveals: that the band was on the verge of breaking up many times before the foursome finally got around to doing so, the result of titanic power struggles that make the whole Beatles enterprise all that much less innocent.

Spitz, a veteran of the business side of entertainment, has a learned appreciation for matters of the bottom line. The Beatles' arrival in New York in 1964 has come to be seen as a triumph of transnational culture, of the moptops' conquering a needful America; it puts the moment in a somewhat different perspective to know that the 707 crossing the water was full of merchandisers who "had booked seats on Flight 101 in order to corner the Beatles with far-fetched pitches" and to ink exclusive deals to manufacture more junk -- lunchboxes, bobblehead dolls, fright wigs -- to cash in on Beatlemania. John Lennon, Spitz writes, may have been the worst of the four in handling money -- the working-class hero spent it without regard for consequence -- but he also was quick to sign off on such income-producing embarrassments.

"The Beatles" has a few puzzling moments, mostly when Spitz crosses from commerce into criticism. How, one might wonder, is "Baby's in Black" a "pretentious, image laden-song?" ("Eleanor Rigby," maybe, but . . .) Were the band's pre-1965 compositions characterized by "standard progressions, rheumy lyrics, and simplistic arrangements?" Does it really serve no purpose "trying to dissect the songs to determine who contributed what?" (If so, what will legions of Beatleologists do with their free time?) And why pick on Yoko Ono, anyway?

Readers wondering what all the fuss was about in the first place might be better served by first looking into Hunter Davies' there-at-the-time biography "The Beatles" and Mark Hertsgaard's "A Day in the Life," which focuses on what really matters -- namely, the music. But for collectors, completists, latter-day Beatlemaniacs and students of recent cultural history, Spitz's book -- though debatable at points -- is a welcome arrival.

Armstrong Says His Celebrity Puzzles Him

CINCINNATI - Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, has never felt comfortable with the celebrity he achieved. In fact, it puzzles him.

"Friends and colleagues, all of a sudden, looked at us, treated us slightly differently than they had months or years before when we were working together," the Apollo 11 astronaut told "60 Minutes" in an interview to be broadcast Sunday. "I never quite understood that."

Armstrong, 75, rarely grants interviews. He agreed to one last month just before his only authorized biography, "First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong," hit bookstores.

The interview will air on CBS, which, like the book's publisher, Simon & Schuster, is owned by Viacom.

Author James R. Hansen, an Auburn University professor and former NASA historian who wrote the biography, was allowed more than 50 hours of recorded interviews with Armstrong in his suburban Cincinnati home.

On July 20, 1969, Armstrong, then 38, stepped onto the moon with the famous words, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

In the years since, he has taught at the University of Cincinnati and served on corporate boards, all the while rejecting interview requests.

In an e-mail response to The Cincinnati Enquirer, Armstrong said he reluctantly agreed to the book deal.

"Many individuals whose opinions I value have urged me to find a way to put my story in print," Armstrong said. "I concluded a biography would be superior to an autobiography.

"I believed the author should have access to my recollections and thoughts although he would not be bound to use or accept them."

'Chicken Little' flies high at box office

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Chicken Little," the first fully computer-animated movie produced by Walt Disney Co., exceeded industry expectations by selling $40.1 million in tickets in North American in its first three days of release, the company said on Sunday.

Film industry observers had expected the new box office champion to pass the $30 million mark, despite scathing reviews.

The film is considered a key test of the ability of Disney, whose fortunes were built on hand-drawn cartoons such as Bambi and The Little Mermaid, to succeed in the world of computer animation without help from the blockbusters made by its production partner Pixar Animation Studios Inc.

Disney's partnership with Pixar, in which it has shared box office grosses of $3.2 billion since 1995 from movies like the "Toy Story" series and "Finding Nemo," expires next year.

The two companies are in talks to renew the pact, although Pixar is pursuing a deal under which it would pay a flat fee for distribution and keep the profits for itself, in much the same way as George Lucas contracts with 20th Century Fox to distribute his "Star Wars" films.

Under former Disney Chief Executive Officer Michael Eisner, relations between Disney and Pixar deteriorated, but new Disney CEO Robert Iger is working to restore harmony.

The project revolves around the age-old tale of a chicken that thinks the sky is falling. In Disney's adaptation, no one believes the chicken (voiced by "Scrubs" star Zach Braff) when he warns of a greater peril.

Critics were generally appalled by the movie, though industry observers say bad reviews generally mean nothing to parents looking to keep their children quiet for a few hours.