Robert Downey Jr. Is Iron Man

Robert Downey Jr. is ready to become one serious metalhead--the actor has signed on to play the title role in Iron Man, Paramount Pictures' feature film based on the famed Marvel superhero.

Downey will play Tony Stark, a billionaire industrialist and brilliant inventor, who, after a near-fatal accident, builds a high-tech, nearly impenetrable suit of armor that gives him superhuman strength and other powers, which he uses to fight the baddies.

Jon Favreau, a longtime comic buff (and costar of another Marvel adaption, Daredevil), will helm Iron Man. Marvel Entertainment is producing the $100 million action-adventure, the first time the company is fully financing a film based on one of its characters. Paramount will serve as distributor.

The idea for a screen version of Iron Man has been kicking around Hollywood for nearly a decade, but despite the interest of Tom Cruise and Nicolas Cage to don the armor, the project never got off the drawing board until now.

Iron Man was created by Larry Lieber, Stan Lee, Don Lee and Jack Kirby and premiered in Marvel Comics' Tales of Suspense #39 in March 1963. Stark's red-and-gold-hued metallic alter ego originally battled Communists during the early years of the Vietnam War, often appearing alongside Captain America.

But Stark evolved into a more complicated comic book figure, whose fought crime and personal demons, including alcoholism--something to which Downey can no doubt relate.

The actor's well documented battles with booze and drug addiction landed him behind bars and nearly wrecked a career that includes a Best Actor Oscar nominee for 1992's Chaplin.

Downey reportedly lobbied hard for the role, working out and growing a goatee styled like the one Stark sports in the comic book. Iron Man will mark the actor's first big-budget action flick.

"In every casting announcement we've done, people in their mind's eye have their own view of it and let us know about it. We're used to it," Kevin Feige, Marvel's president of production, told the Hollywood Reporter. "The point is, we looked at everybody, and we found the best person for the role. It's as confident a casting move as we've ever done. The proof will be in the pudding, but he is Tony Stark."

According to trade reports, Iron Man's initial outing won't focus on Stark's drinking problem, but producers say those issues may be covered in sequels, should the franchise take off. Instead, Iron Man's plot is expected to contemporize the storyline and likely include the hero battling terrorists.

Downey most appeared in a quartet of 2005 releases: George Clooney's Oscar-nominated Good Night, and Good Luck, Shane Black's off-kilter indie thriller Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Disney's remake of The Shaggy Dog, and Richard Linklater's trippy sci-fi flick, A Scanner Darkly.

The actor's upcoming projects include the indie caper A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints; Lucky You, a drama which reunites him with Wonder Boys director Curtis Hanson; David Fincher's crime caper Zodiac, starring opposite Jake Gyllenhaal; and the Diane Arbus biopic Fur, starring Nicole Kidman and due out Nov. 10.

Downey also recently inked a deal with HarperCollins to publish a memoir.

Iron Man starts shooting in February and is scheduled to hit in theaters in May 2008.

Esquire: Scarlett Johansson `Sexiest'

NEW YORK - Scarlett Johansson's hourglass figure and plum movie roles have brought her many fans. Among them, clearly, the editors at Esquire. The magazine has just crowned her "Sexiest Woman Alive."

The 21-year-old actress poses in come-hither garb on the cover and inside pages of the magazine's November issue, on newsstands Oct. 18.

On the cover, she wears a bra and a white Calvin Klein mini-dress; In a series of photos inside (showing her as an "enigmatic trailer-park temptress," the magazine says), she wears cleavage-baring black lingerie paired with an open white robe, among other get-ups.

Johansson, whose screen credits include "The Black Dahlia," "Lost in Translation" and "Match Point," says she would rather be admired for attributes other than sex appeal.

"What about my brain? What about my heart? What about my kidneys and my gallbladder?" she asks, addressing all the hoopla about her curves in an interview in the magazine.

She is no stranger to the paparazzi's cameras, and once flashed a sign proclaiming, "the person taking this picture is harrassing me."

"Apparently I spelled `harass' wrong," she recalls. "It was horrible. I couldn't remember whether it was one `r' or two, and I asked like four people, and they said two."

Heritage committee grills CBC bosses on reality TV, hockey

CBC management was on the hot seat in Ottawa Wednesday, as the committee on Canadian Heritage questioned senior managers about programming decisions and rumours the network could lose hockey.

CBC president Robert Rabinovitch, English television executive vice president Richard Stursberg, English radio vice president Jane Chalmers and Sylvain Lafrance, executive vice president of French services, appeared before the all-party standing committee Wednesday afternoon.

Two high profile CBC-TV projects that made national headlines this year were discussed: the decision to simulcast U.S. reality singing contest The One, and the furor over inaccuracies in the miniseries Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story.

NDP heritage critic Charlie Angus had been a vocal opponent of the reality show simulcast, which bumped flagship evening newscast The National out of its slot. The One was ultimately cancelled by U.S. broadcaster ABC.

On Wednesday, Angus reminded Rabinovitch that just a year ago, he had told the committee that CBC would not do reality television.

"Did something change dramatically in the six or seven months between deciding on that show and when you told us you wouldn't have reality TV?" Angus demanded.

Reality, but no bug-eating: CBC president

Rabinovitch said that he had been ambiguous last year and stressed that the network would not do "shows that stress plastic surgery, sex and humiliation [and the] eating of insects."

The committee also grilled the managers about Prairie Giant. A re-broadcast of the two-part miniseries was pulled and DVD sales stopped after the family of Jimmy Gardiner bristled at the artistic license taken in depicting the former Saskatchewan premier and Douglas rival.

Aside from the Gardiner family's outrage, the move drew ire from the miniseries creators and several production unions.

Concern about local news, hockey

However, the CBC management team focused on outlining its current and future challenges.

Rabinovitch said English television's local supper-hour newscast pilot project had proved disappointing and is going back to the drawing board for re-evaluation.

"The numbers, quite frankly, are unacceptable. They're too low by a long-shot," he said. "We have to ask ourselves some very fundamental questions about what it is we want to do."

The senior managers also were frank about reports that core CBC show Hockey Night in Canada — which the network has broadcast for more than 70 years on radio and then television — is at risk. Rumours have arisen that CBC could lose its broadcasting deal with the National Hockey League to private sector competitors CTV and TSN.

Hockey loss would mean complete TV re-evaluation

Rabinovitch said it was "distinctly possible" that the NHL could go to CTV and if it were to happen, "we will have to seriously re-evaluate almost everything about English television."

An absence of the hockey broadcasts would create several enormous challenges: the need to fill a 400-hour programming hole on Saturday nights from October through April and a significant loss of revenue.

According to Stursberg, professional sports broadcasts contribute about $100 million a year to the CBC.

"If this piece were to move out in a significant way, then the economics of English television are challenged at the most fundamental kind of level," he said.

Urge for stable funding

Faced with this unstable situation, the senior managers are calling for a long-term funding commitment from the federal government, for instance a 10-year funding plan versus the current system of year-to-year approval.

Other suggestions they made to the Canadian Heritage committee include regular mandate reviews and the ability to collect fees from cable and satellite subscribers.

Sci fi series "Doctor Who" zooms into record books

LONDON (Reuters) - The cult science fiction series "Doctor Who" has won a place in the record books as the longest-running television show of its type, a fitting accolade for the time-travelling adventurer.

The book "Guinness World Records" said on Friday more than 700 episodes of the program, which first aired on the BBC in 1963, had been broadcast, covering 173 story lines and showcasing 10 different actors in the role of the Time Lord.

A spokeswoman for the book said the category of longest-running sci-fi series had been newly introduced for the 2007 edition.

The latest actor to play the Doctor, David Tennant, told the book he decided to become an actor after watching an earlier incarnation -- Tom Baker -- during the 1970s.

"I took one look at his Doctor Who and decided it was the job for me. I was convinced that when I was old enough I was going to play the part of the Doctor on TV," he said.

While fans of the different series may have their favorite Doctors, the concept has endured and the program attracts more than 7 million viewers in Britain and many more abroad.

That the series has lasted so long is partly thanks to iconic villains such the "Daleks" and the Cybermen, and also because the main character can regenerate, allowing the series to keep fresh by bringing a new lead actor.

Helping maintain consistency are props such as the Doctor's time traveling machine the Tardis, his companion -- usually young and female -- and his robot dog K-9.

Terri Irwin: Footage of Steve's Death Won't Air

There's going to be one less morbid tape soiling the airwaves these days.

In her first interview since her husband's death, Steve Irwin's widow, Terri, said that the video footage captured of the Crocodile Hunter's run-in with the stingray that killed him will never be broadcast on television.

"No. No. What purpose would that serve," Terri Irwin told ABC's 20/20 in a segment set to air Wednesday, adding that she has never watched the tape, either. "It was an accident so stupid. It was like running with a pencil. It was not risk he was taking. It was just an accident."

Irwin, 44, was killed Sept. 4 while filming a documentary near Australia's Great Barrier Reef when he was stung in the heart by a stingray. Wildlife experts have called the TV star and conservationist's death a "freak accident."

More than 5,000 people gathered last Tuesday at Irwin's Australia Zoo to pay tribute to the man known the world over for his "Crikey" outbursts and enthusiasm for some of nature's deadliest creatures.

"I have to make sure the zoo keeps running," Terri Irwin told 20/20's Barbara Walters. "He planned all that masterfully. He planned this wonderful business so that it could continue if anything happened to him."

Despite Irwin's jovial demeanor, Terri Irwin said that her late husband had a feeling he wasn't going to live to a ripe old age, and not just because he bucked the odds every day, cozying up to poisonous snakes and wrestling with creatures from the deep. "He'd talk about it often," she said. "But it wasn't because of any danger from wildlife. That was never a consideration. He just felt life could be dangerous."

Terri, who's from Oregon, and Steve Irwin tied the knot in 1992, six months after meeting in Australia, where Terri was on vacation. "I fell then and there, love at first sight," she said.

The khaki-clad Croc Hunter told the pretty American that he had a girlfriend, though.

"I was a little bit devastated," she told Walters. But, luckily that "girlfriend" turned out to be Irwin's pet dog, Sue.

"I had romance like I didn't think existed anymore, a wonderful romance," Terri Irwin, who frequently traveled with her mate on his adventures and costarred in the 2002 film The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, said. "He was passionate and determined and enthusiastic."

It wasn't always paradise in the Outback, of course, but the Irwins made it work. "There were so many things that made me crazy," Terri recalled, "like his desire to do everything now. He had a real sense of urgency with his life and no side-view business plan. If you got plans, we'll do them now."

The Croc Hunter's other half said that she is coping with her husband's death "one minute at a time, sometimes an hour at a time."

"With great faith, great determination," she said. "I have two beautiful children. And they really are my strength."

Eight-year-old Bindi told the crowd at her father's public memorial service that she plans to carry on his conservationist efforts and promote his love for nature. The little girl's speech, which she studiously read from a piece of notepaper, prompted a standing ovation from the thousands in attendance.

Bindi, who also has a two-year-old brother, Robert, is already making good on her word, hosting a series on the Discovery Network called Bindi the Jungle Girl.

"Bindi has a spirituality about her that I've seen with Steve," Terri Irwin said. "She has unbelievable sensitivity. She has an uncanny connection with wildlife. She has a love for them that was just like her dad's."

New 'Lost' season reveals The Others

HONOLULU (AP) - Henry Gale wasn't supposed to survive this long.

The cunning, bug-eyed character on ABC's castaway drama "Lost," played by Michael Emerson, was hired for three episodes midway through Season 2. But once producers saw Emerson in action, he was made into a key character and is now leading The Others in the highly anticipated third season.

"The reason The Others seem so frightening is like everything in the real world - it's frightening when it's unknown," Emerson told The Associated Press. "Their agenda is unknown to us; therefore we fill it up with terrible imaginings."

The former Broadway actor is best known to TV audiences for his Emmy-winning performance as a serial killer in "The Practice." Damon Lindelof, co-creator and executive producer of "Lost" (season premiere Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET), said the original plan was to have Henry escape after the three episodes. But Season 2 ended with Henry and his armed cadre on a dock, holding plane crash survivors Jack, Kate and Sawyer captive.

"Who are you people?" asked Michael, who had betrayed his fellow castaways in exchange for his son.

"We're the good guys," Henry replies.

"I think he means it," Emerson said of his character (actors are typically kept in the dark about future plot developments). "We may not agree with him, but I think he believes it."

Season 3 opens with Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lily) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) in captivity. This season will explore why they were targeted; whether Sun's baby is really Jin's; Charlie trying to gain Claire's trust, a new woman catching Jack's attention; Locke and Sayid leading a group to rescue the three captives; and Desmond's wealthy lover trying to locate the island.

"In Season 3, the show moves geographically and spiritually to another place," Emerson said. "We will be with The Others more. They will become more three-dimensional."

He said viewers may even come to sympathize with The Others, who were on island long before the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815.

"Who's really the intruder? Who's the bad guys? Who's upsetting who? Who has the right to be there?" Emerson said.

Despite most of his scenes occurring in a small cell, Henry Gale has become one of the most compelling figures on "Lost." With a piercing stare, he transitions from victim to villain, keeping viewers guessing whether they should be sympathetic or scared.

And while Locke was pushing buttons to save the world, Henry was busy pushing Locke's buttons. Could Henry be a psychologist, or just well read?

"He seems to have a strong background in psychology, I would say," Emerson said. "He's beyond well read. He's really well read. That psychology stuff? That sounds good to me. He's not playing around when it comes to behaviour."

Like his character, Emerson is articulate and intelligent. Unlike Henry, Emerson is personable and warm.

While honing his skills on stage, he held several odd jobs as a landscaper, teacher, carpenter and illustrator while honing his skills on stage.

"You know those Social Security statements that tell you what you made every year? I look back on that and think, 'This is insanely little money,"' Emerson said. "But I don't remember feeling very desperate about it. ... Despite my poverty, I was always sort of doing what I wanted to do."

Emerson, 52, grew up in the small farming town of Toledo, Iowa, where he spent a lot of his unstructured childhood reading, drawing and day dreaming. He majored in theatre at Drake University and quickly became known as the small guy with a big voice.

He then moved to New York City.

"I thought Des Moines (Iowa) was this crazy big town. New York just knocked the wind out of me," he said. "I was looking for a big challenge and I found it."

He moved to the South and eventually met his future wife, actress Carrie Preston, during a production of "Hamlet" at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. He followed her to New York and got his first major break as the lead in Moises Kaufman's "Gross Indecency."

The name "Henry Gale" is as puzzling as Emerson's character.

It's not even the character's real name. He at first presents himself as a rich businessman who crash landed on the island on a hot air balloon with his wife, who allegedly died.

Henry Gale was Dorothy Gale's uncle in the film "The Wizard of Oz." In the 1938 classic, a hot air balloon was the mode of transportation for the Wizard and supposed to return Dorothy home to Kansas.

"What does all that mean? Is it just fun or is it a clue?" Emerson asked. "Dorothy is sort of shipwrecked in a strange place far from home, but hers was a fantasy. It wasn't real.

"It was a place where the moral order was sort of turned upside down or seen from a different perspective. On some level, it was a test of her as a person."

The real Henry Gale on "Lost" is a dead black man who is buried near the damaged hot air balloon.

That leaves even Emerson perplexed about who his character is.

"I'm not sure how that's going to work out," he said. "It seems everybody kind of knows him as Henry now, but sooner or later, we're going to have to put a real name on him, aren't we?

MEL'S NOT ABOVE 'LAW'

The story of Mel Gibson's drunk-driving arrest and subsequent anti-Semitic tirade is being adapted for a "Law & Order" episode starring Chevy Chase.

The episode - titled "In Vino Veritas" - has Chase, 62, guest-starring "as a television celebrity who is pulled over for drunk driving while wearing blood-soaked clothes, and whose religious prejudice comes out after his arrest," according to an announcement from NBC yesterday.

While the network did not reveal the nature of the character's prejudice, it is anti-Semitism, said a source who requested anonymity.

Filming of the episode is under way this week in New York. The dramatic role is a rarity for Chase, the long-ago star of "Saturday Night Live," two "Fletch" movies and four "National Lampoon" films.

Gibson, 50, was pulled over for speeding July 27 near his home in Malibu, Calif. He was subsequently arrested for driving while intoxicated after he became belligerent with police officers. That was when he unleashed an anti-Semitic rant in which, among other things, he blamed Jews for "all the wars in the world."

"Law & Order" often uses real-life news stories as a jumping-off point for its own stories. One significant difference between the Gibson and "Law & Order" stories is the blood on the Chase character's shirt, indicating that he was involved in a violent crime. In real-life, Gibson was not splattered with blood when he was stopped for speeding.

The episode is scheduled to air Friday, Nov. 3, at 10 p.m. on NBC.

For Trekkies, something to cling on to

Christie's next week will sell a spaceship-load of Star Trek stuff in the first — and probably last — official auction of artifacts from the TV series turned pop-culture phenomenon.

CBS Paramount, which owns the Trek franchise, has decided to sell more than 1,000 of the tens of thousands of costumes, props, weapons and set dressings accumulated during the production of five live-action series and 10 theatrical films since 1966, when William Shatner's Captain Kirk first uttered his now-familiar "Space, the final frontier" on national television.

Trekkies, who are famous for their mania for collecting, are said to be over the moon at the chance to bid six-figure sums on Kirk's Starfleet uniform or that holy of holies, the Starship Enterprise-A model.

"Smaller collections have come on the market before, but this is the largest, the only one from studio archives and from all the films and series, and it's the 40th anniversary, so there's definitely a fervor about this," says Cathy Elkies, Christie's director of specialty auctions.

The entire hoard, grandly titled 40 Years of Star Trek: The Collection, will open for public viewing Saturday at Christie's Rockefeller Plaza in New York with the auction Oct. 5-7. Buyers also will be able to bid live online at Christies.com. Throngs of people are expected; some might be in costume.

Christie's is betting the sale will be huge, and the $3-million-plus estimated take probably is conservative.

Why? Because contrary to reputation, Trekkies are not just geeks with too much time on their hands. After all, Paul Allen collects Star Trek. In 2002, he bought Kirk's captain's chair from the original series for $250,000 for his Science Fiction Museum in Seattle.

"There is not a stereotypical Star Trek fan; they represent a wide spectrum of the population — attorneys, doctors, engineers, teachers and astronauts," says Denise Okuda, who with husband Michael worked on the series and films as scenic artists and wrote The Star Trek Encyclopedia.

The Okudas were hired as auction consultants and for the past six months have combed through five vast studio warehouses to pick out "the most valuable, iconic and coveted" items for the sale.

The Okudas expect that the items most prized by Trekkies will be the spaceship models, costumes (Elkies says some surviving cast members are interested in buying theirs) and behind-the-scenes items such as costumer's continuity notes.

The Couch Potato Report - September 26th, 2006

This week The Couch Potato Report shines the spotlight on Canada, our home and native land.

Douglas Coupland is a Canadian fiction writer, playwright and visual artist.

His first book, the 1991 novel “Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture”, became an international bestseller and popularized the term ‘Generation X’.

Most of Coupland's work explores the unexpected cultural shifts created by the impact of new technologies on middle class North American culture.

“Souvenir of Canada” was a book Coupland wrote in 2002.

In the book's introduction, Coupland states his intention was to author a book about Canada “…that only Canadians would get.”

The book profiles bilingualism, beer bottles, cigarette warning labels, the Trans-Canada Highway, Terry Fox’s prosthetic leg, the Canadarm, stubby beer bottles, bilingual cereal boxes, Ookpik, and many other things that are uniquely Canadian.

In addition to being a book, SOUVENIR OF CANADA is now a documentary film as well.

In the film Coupland shows us some of the things that “only Canadians would get” as he puts together an interactive art exhibit called Canada House with Canadian content front and center.

As the author build’s his Canada House there are stories and features on some of the things that make Canadians, Canadians, and some of the things that were designed years ago to try and make us more Canadian.

For instance, he brings back the greeting “chimo”, an Inuit word that was supposed to become Canada's version of “Aloha”.

SOUVENIR OF CANADA is just that, a souvenir of a Canada full of memories that we all collectively share, and I really, really enjoyed the film.

The one negative thing that I have to say about SOUVENIR OF CANADA is the fact that at times there is too much of a focus put on Douglas Coupland and his family and thus the things that “only Canadians would get” take a back seat

However, as someone who has had his entire family on his show at one point or another, I guess I shouldn’t talk.

SOUVENIR OF CANADA is a wonderfully enjoyable trip down memory lane and if you are a Canadian who grew up in the sixties and seventies it is a must see.

And SOUVENIR OF CANADA is available now on DVD at a store near you.

Coming up on the next Couch Potato Report

CORNER GAS: SEASON THREE features all 19 episodes of the made-in-Saskatchewan series, including one of my favourites: “The Littlest Yarbo” where Hank is outwitted by a German Shepherd while trying to prove it’s the dog from the legendary TV show – The Littlest Hobo.

Also next week THANK YOU FOR SMOKING is a satirical comedy about a tobacco spokesman, who is trying to remain a role model for his twelve-year-old son; and the Disney classic THE LITTLE MERMAID is being released in a two-disc special edition with a wide array of special features!

I'm Dan Reynish. I'll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.

For now, that's this week's COUCH POTATO REPORT.

Enjoy the movies and I'll see you back here next time on The Couch!

New Muppet CD coming for Christmas

Disney is planning to release an all-new Muppet album just in time for Christmas. The album is entitled "A Green (and Red) Christmas" and is set for release on October 17, 2006.

The album will feature 12 newly recorded holiday songs (both old favorites and newly written songs) by all your favorite Muppets. The CD is already up for preorder at Amazon.com for the low price of $9.99.

So be sure to set your calendars because this year you'll be able to bring in the holidays with some special (and new) Muppet cheer.

"A Green and Red Christmas" Track Listing

'Zat You, Santa Claus? - The Electric Mayhem
A Red and Green Christmas - Kermit & Miss Piggy
The Christmas Party Sing-Along - Rowlf
Merry Christmas Baby - Pepe
The Man with the Bag - Floyd, Animal & Zoot
Santa Baby - Miss Piggy
It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year - Gonzo & Rizzo
North Pole Comedy Club - Fozzie, Statler & Waldorf
Run, Run Rudolph - The Electric Mayhem
Christmas Smorgasbord - Swedish Chef
The Christmas Queen - Miss Piggy
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Kermit

This will be the third CD Disney has released since they bought the Muppets in February 2004. The Muppet Christmas Carol Soundtrack was reissued last Christmas while a Best of the Muppets/Muppets' Wizard of Oz CD was released in May 2005.

New Releases, Sept. 26: Janet Jackson, Tony Bennett, Jerry Lee Lewis

Janet Jackson "20 Y.O."

Twenty years ago, Janet Jackson kicked off her solo career with 1986's groundbreaking "Control." Since that point, it's been all platinum records, big radio hits and glitzy videos. Of course, there was also that famed "slip" at the Super Bowl.

Jackson celebrates the milestone anniversary with the release of "20 Y.O." The album features guest appearances by Khia (on "So Excited") and Nelly ("Call on Me").

* * *
Tony Bennett "Duets"

One of the greatest careers in music history just keeps right on rolling along, as Tony Bennett delivers yet another new album. The classy vocalist, who celebrated his 80th birthday last month, returns this time with the star-studded "Duets."

The album features the timeless crooner sharing the mic with such big-name celebs as Bono, Elvis Costello, Celine Dion, the Dixie Chicks, Billy Joel, Elton John, Diana Krall, Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney.

* * *
Jerry Lee Lewis "Last Man Standing"

The piano legend, who will mark his 71st birthday on Friday (9/29), returns with his own celeb-heavy affair, "Last Man Standing."

An amazing number of rock and country legends--more than 20 in all--have participated in this recording, making it, indeed, a true musical event. Notable names include Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Willie Nelson, Toby Keith, Little Richard, Merle Haggard and Neil Young.

* * *
Alan Jackson "Like Red on a Rose"

The platinum-selling cowboy gets a helping hand on this new album from Alison Krauss, the angelic voiced bluegrass star who produced "Like Red on a Rose." Krauss also joins in on harmony vocals, as does Lee Ann Womack. The first single from the record is "Anywhere on Earth You Are."

* * *
Weird Al Yankovic "Straight Outta Lynwood"

The ultimate pop-music pundit is back with another collection of comedic songs. "Straight Outta Lynwood"--a reference to Weird Al's hometown of Lynwood, CA--features such humorously named songs as "Weasel Stomping Day," "Polkarama!" and "Do I Creep You Out."

* * *
More new releases:
Tori Amos, "A Piano: The Collection" (Atlantic)
Solomon Burke, "Nashville" (Shout Factory)
Depeche Mode, "Touring the Angel: Live in Milan" (Reprise)
Enigma, "A Posteriori" (Virgin)
Amy Grant, "Time Again: Amy Grant Live" (Word)
Ludacris, "Release Therapy" (Def Jam)
Vanessa Hudgens, "V" (Hollywood)
Boney James, "Shine" (Concord)
Keith Jarrett, "Carnegie Hall Concert" (ECM)
Lemonheads, "Lemonheads" (Vagrant)
Paul McCartney, "Ecce Cor Meum" (EMI)
Audra McDonald, "Build a Bridge" (Nonesuch)
Medeski Scofield Martin and Wood, "Out Louder" (Indirecto)
Andre Rieu, "The Homecoming" (Denon)
Scissor Sisters, "Ta Dah!" (Universal)
Chris Tomlin, "See the Morning" (Sparrow)

Soundtracks and scores:
"The U.S. vs. John Lennon" (Capitol)

Tenacious D Still Arguing As 'Destiny' Draws Near

It wouldn't be a conversation with Tenacious D if principal members Jack Black and Kyle Gass weren't arguing with one another about anything and everything.

For instance, still up for debate is just how many songs will be featured on the soundtrack to the group's film "Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny," due Nov. 14 via Epic.

"I think it's around 12," Gass tells Billboard.com. "I think it's 18," Black replies. "Well, it depends on what you count as a song," Gass insists. "But tracks. How many numbers," Black says. "Yeah, I'm not counting numbers," Gass retorts. "Ten to 12 new songs."

The duo can agree on a few tracks sure to make the cut, including first single "Pick of Destiny," the video for which premieres today (Sept. 25) on MTV. "This is basically just a retelling of what you just saw," Gass says of the clip. "Jack and I go see our own movie but we ruin the movie for the people watching."

Fans can also look forward to "Master Exploder" ("Jack dreams how kick-ass we're going to be once we have the Pick of Destiny," Gass says), opener "Kickapoo" (which features Meat Loaf and Ronnie James Dio) and "Classico" ("It's about when Jack and I first meet at Venice Beach, and a spontaneous jam happens," Gass offers. "Jack starts singing along a classical riff to my classical guitar solo").

"Destiny," which opens Nov. 17, sports "one of the strongest openings and title sequences ever. I'm not even joking," Black says. "We kick it off with a kick-ass animation, actually. What is a better one, Kyle, that you can think of? 'North by Northwest' by Alfred Hitchcock. That's a good one, but is it better than the D?"

The question remains: with the movie and soundtrack about to be unleashed, is Tenacious D's "destiny" now fulfilled? "In terms of brass rings, or quests for power and validation, yeah, this was it, except for one little piece of the puzzle: the cover of Rolling Stone," Black says. "I think they're waiting for the first week's box office," Gass quips.

Still, the D has a couple of pet projects in line, should "Pick of Destiny" fail to cement the group as one of rock's all-time greats. "I'd love to make a sequel," Gass says. "I'd like to do a complete album of covers with no songs written after 1937. I'd like to do a concept album, with the concept being about me. I'd like to do a third part, which is actually part six of a nine-part nine-ogy." Says Black, alarmed, "A nine-part nine-ogy? I think that makes it an 81-ogy."

Tenacious D will hit the road in late November for a North American tour, followed by dates in the United Kingdom. More touring is planned for early next year, including shows in Australia, according to Black.

"Scrubs" Nurse Needs Doctoring

Unfortunately, Judy Reyes' latest trip to the ER wasn't as a guest-star.

Reyes, who plays feisty nurse Carla Espinosa on Scrubs, suffered a fractured pelvis last Wednesday after falling down at her home, NBC spokesman David Gardner confirmed to E! Online.

"She's going to be fine," the 37-year-old actress' rep, Monique Ward, told People magazine. "She had surgery to repair it on Thursday. She didn't realize it was as bad as it was and still went to work. Once there, she realized she needed medical treatment. She went to a hospital from the set." Reyes, who's also known for her work on HBO's prison drama, Oz, was expected to be released from the hospital Monday.

Scrubs' filming schedule has been reworked for the time being to accommodate Reyes' healing process, which is going to include about six weeks of hobbling around on crutches. In the meantime she'll shoot some of her less strenuous scenes.

Last season on Scrubs, Carla and her husband, Turk ( Donald Faison), learned that they would be having their first child together and embarked on your usual sitcom pregnancy--an announcement that didn't go according to plan, lots of misunderstandings and insecurities, and many thwarted sexual advances.

Season six will pick up with Carla a very uncomfortable nine and a half-months pregnant (so maybe some sitting-down scenes will do both Reyes and her character a world of good). Zach Braff's J.D. will be dealing with his own girlfriend's "I'm pregnant" announcement, while Dr. Cox ( John C. McGinley) and his beloved ex-wife Jordan ( Christa Miller) are expecting baby number two, as well.

Although Scrubs was renewed in May for another full season, the Emmy nominee for Outstanding Comedy won't show up on NBC's lineup until 2007, at a date to be announced.

Actor Crowe doesn't "do charity work" for studios

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Actor Russell Crowe said on Monday he quit an epic movie about the Australian outback co-starring Nicole Kidman because he doesn't do "charity work" for major studios.

The New Zealand-born Australian actor had been scheduled to star in the as-yet untitled film directed by Baz Luhrmann, but dropped out and was replaced by another Australian actor, Hugh Jackman, in June. At the time, no reason for the cast change was announced.

"I just didn't want to work on that movie in the type of environment that was being created because of the needs of the budget," Crowe told reporters while promoting his new movie, director Ridley Scott's "A Good Year," in New York.

"I do charity work, but I don't do charity work for major studios."

The Luhrmann movie was due to begin production this month, but has been pushed back to February because of scheduling conflicts and budget debates with 20th Century Fox, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

A spokesman for 20th Century Fox had no immediate comment.

Media reports have put the budget for the ambitious film at between $150 million and $175 million.

Luhrmann, director of the hit musical "Moulin Rouge," has described the film to Australian newspapers as a sweeping romance in the same vein as "Gone with the Wind" and on the scale of David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia."

He said the film would be set in Australia from the mid-1930s leading up to the Japanese bombing of the tropical northern city of Darwin in World War Two.

Crowe and Kidman were scheduled to have starred together in another Australian movie, based on the novel "Eucalyptus," but the project collapsed last year because of difficulties with the script.

"It will come around when it's supposed to come around," Crowe said of filming a movie in Australia.

"The unfortunate thing about the way the media works these days, before the idea is even really solidified in people's heads it's already front page news. The film business is very complicated."

Saints march in as Superdome comes alive

NEW ORLEANS - As rock bands blasted and tailgate parties served up barbecue and brew, thousands of people poured into the streets Monday night, hoping to forget about Hurricane Katrina during a Mardi Gras-like celebration of the Saints' first home game since the storm.

Crowds swamped the area around the Louisiana Superdome in a human sea, creating a huge traffic jam for the team's emotional return and the reopening of the stadium, which underwent $185 million in repairs to erase damage done during and after Katrina.

"This is exactly what the city needs," said Saints season ticket holder Clara Donate, 58, who lost her home and all her possessions to Katrina's floodwaters. "We all need something else to think about."

The Saints and the Atlanta Falcons were both undefeated at 2-0 early in the NFL season, and the game received Super Bowl buildup. The Goo Goo Dolls played to the crowd outside the dome. Green Day and U2 performed for the crowd of more than 68,000 inside.

Harold Johnson couldn't get into the Superdome, but he planned to sit with his neighbors outside his government-issue trailer and watch the game on television.

"I don't want to talk about Katrina. I don't want to talk about insurance. I don't want to talk about anything but kicking Falcon butt," Johnson said as he stocked up on beer at a grocery store for the cookout with his neighbors.

Even with its gleaming new cover, the Superdome remained a symbol of Katrina's misery. Tens of thousands of storm victims suffered there in withering heat after last summer's hurricane filled the city with stinking floodwaters.

The Saints have not played a regular-season home game since 2004. They last played in the Superdome in a 2005 preseason game a few days before Katrina.

After the storm, the Saints became the NFL's traveling show, establishing a base in San Antonio and playing every game on the road amid speculation that owner Tom Benson might not bring them back to New Orleans.

Even now, a high-rise hotel, an office tower and an upscale shopping center stand empty just a few hundred feet from the stadium, with white boards covering blown-out windows. A few miles away, entire neighborhoods are wastelands of decaying houses.

Johnson and his neighbors were holding the party outdoors because none of them had room inside their trailers.

Amid the desolation, some residents could not bring themselves to celebrate the team's return.

Irma Warner, 71, and her husband, Pascal Warner, 80, live in an apartment in suburban Metairie while working six days a week to restore a home flooded by 7 feet of water in New Orleans' Lakeview neighborhood.

"We rode around through the Ninth Ward yesterday," Irma Warner said. "When I saw that, I thought, how can they spend $185 million on the Superdome. What about all these poor people?"

But she appeared to be in the minority. Downtown offices and City Hall shut down early in anticipation of crowds at the Superdome. Teachers promised to assign little Monday night homework so students could watch the game on television.

Tanyha Brown of Metairie said her husband was leaving work early so they could attend the festivities outside the Superdome. With no tickets to the game, they planned to watch from a nearby bar.

"This is the best holiday since Mardi Gras," Brown said.

Get Smart - It's here - Canadian Ordering Info!

Alright my fellow Canucks, we can order the Get Smart DVD set from Time-Life in Canada, but we'll have to do it via phone for now.

The set, which sells for $199.96 US, is $249.95 CAN (a reasonable conversion rate), plus a shipping and handling charge of $19.99 CAN and taxes (but if you whine a bit they may give you free shipping).

Just call Time Life Canada at 1-800-950-7887 and place your order. They still don't know when the set will be added to their website.

Sony Cuts Price of PS3 in Japan

Company cuts the price by 20% in response to complaints about high cost.

Sony Corp., the world's biggest maker of video game players, cut the price in Japan of its PlayStation 3 by about 20%, responding to complaints that it cost twice as much as rival consoles.

The game player will retail for $430 when it goes on sale in Japan on Nov. 11, Ken Kutaragi, head of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., said Friday at the Tokyo Game Show. The company previously said it would sell models for $540.

"They had to cut it because rivals have lower prices, and they may lower the price again if sales don't go well," said Yoku Ihara, head of equity research at Retela Crea Securities Co. in Tokyo. Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer is relying on the PlayStation 3 to revive a company that has lost half its market value in the last six years. The price cut leaves the console, which comes equipped with a high-definition Blu-ray DVD player and a fast processor called the Cell, as the most expensive game box on the market.

"If you consider the PlayStation 3 a toy, then yes, it is an expensive toy," Kutaragi said in an interview with Japanese game magazine Famitsu in May. "The PlayStation and PlayStation 2 were both 10,000 yen more than their competitors at launch, yet they both sold to shortages."

Microsoft this month said it would start selling a cheaper version of its Xbox 360 in Japan for 29,800 yen Nov. 2, while Kyoto, Japan-based Nintendo is offering its Wii console for 25,000 yen.

The surprise price cut comes after Sony on Sept. 6 said it would delay the European release of its PlayStation 3 by four months until March and cut its 2006 global shipment target by half to 2 million.

The PlayStation 3 will make its debut in Japan on Nov. 11 and in the U.S. on Nov. 17. Nintendo's Wii console will go on sale Nov. 19 in the U.S. and Dec. 2 in Japan.

North America Series Two DVD Release

Sci Fi Wire, the news service of the US Sci Fi Channel, has announced the North American release of the second series on DVD on 16 January 2007, according to BBC Worldwide Americas.

"We're over the moon with Doctor Who," said Megan Branigan, vice president of BBC video marketing, in an interview with Sci-Fi Wire.

"We're really pleased with the results this year. We're very excited to continue the momentum with [season] two as we did with [season] one."

The DVD release will be exactly the same as the UK version, including video diaries, the cut-down versions of Doctor Who Confidential, and the lenticular box cover.

The second series of Doctor Who starring David Tennant will begin airing one week from today, Friday 29 September on Sci Fi in the US, and on 9 October in Canada on CBC; the release states that the DVD set will be released on the Tuesday after the series finale in the US, meaning that the season will finish later than was originally expected and will likely skip several weekends late in 2006.

The Stones rock Halifax

HALIFAX - In a shower of raindrops and red fireworks, the Rolling Stones took to the Commons stage for their Halifax debut Saturday night.

"Good evening Halifax!" Mick Jagger yelled to the crowd of close to 50,000 screaming fans.

Dressed in an ankle-length metallic trench coat and matching brimmed hat, Mick gyrated his bony hips — much to the pleasure of the females in the crowd — as he belted out Paint It Black.

"It’s happy time now, baby!" one man screamed, pumping his fists in the air. "We’re at a Rolling Stones concert!"

He repeated the phrase again and again during the Stones two-hour set, overwhelmed by how close he was to his rock idols.

"I can’t believe we’re here! That’s the Rolling Stones!" he shouted, a goofy grin on his face as he pointed at the flashing eight-storey stage.

The man’s mood was contagious, sweeping through the slicker-swathed crowd that braved the cool, wet weather to see Mick and the boys, along with opening acts Sloan, Alice Cooper and Kanye West.

Several people managed to sneak in umbrellas, while most huddled together under tarps or the dripping hoods of their raincoats — or even green garbage bags.

Although the Stones were clearly the crowd favourite, rapper Kanye West had many fans throwing their diamonds in the sky during his 45-minutes set.

As he opened with Diamonds Are Forever, the younger fans swayed to the thumping beat, their fingers pressed together to form the shape of diamonds.

"It’s just like Woodstock," one man said of the concert atmosphere and wide range of music.

And in many ways it was. Amid the clouds of cigarette smoke and rockin’ tunes, the smell of marijuana hung heavy in the wet air and empty plastic baggies littered the muddy ground.

The streets surrounding the Commons were blanketed with police officers dressed in orange rainsuits, and private security guards roamed the grounds — but many fans still found ways to sneak in restricted items, including drugs, cameras and alcohol.

One young woman admitted she and her friends went so far as to bury several bottles of liquor near the fountain more than a week before the concert and planned to dig them up once they got inside.

But police were ready for anything, it seemed — although they had little to deal with.

"Everything is fine," Staff Sgt. Joe Collins of Halifax Regional Police said at 11 p.m. "The ferries are packed full; mass transit is working wonderful. I just drove through the downtown core, and it’s virtually empty."

He said he figured the weather was to thank for the tame crowds.

"Considering the number of people, the amount of alcohol and other substances, it’s been very, very good," he said.

Paramedics at the concert site were somewhat busier, but they didn’t face anything they weren’t expecting, a spokesman for Emergency Health Services said.

"A lot of headaches, a little bit of nausea, people passing out here and there, but nothing overly serious," operations supervisor Jonathon Pippy said at about 7 p.m.

A few hours later there were reports that an unconscious woman was taken away by ambulance, but her condition was not believed to be serious. Sources said another young woman slipped on the sidewalk outside the site and broke her arm.

Scott Ferguson, executive vice-president of Trade Centre Ltd., said there’s no doubt the concert was a success.

"It went fabulous, actually — it was quite an amazing night," he said at about 10:45 p.m. Saturday. "There was probably close to 50,000 people here, and for the most part they were all dressed for the evening and having a great time."

He said the next step is for the concert organizers to sit down and discuss what they can do to make the next time even better — and there will be a next time, he said confidently.

"We’ve proven that the site is a top concert site and can certainly accommodate many more people," Mr. Ferguson said.

But the sobering question earlier in the day was this: What was the traffic like on peninsular Halifax on a day when metro mirrored a major metropolis and actually had more than one big event on tap?

Pretty smooth, as it turned out.

Talk about a fiesta of fun — the Rolling Stones, a National Hockey League exhibition game, homecoming weekend at Saint Mary’s University, the closing night gala for the Atlantic Film Festival, a Sarah Harmer performance at Dalhousie University, Neptune Theatre’s production of A Few Good Men, four cruise ships scheduled to be in port — events that obviously required a lot of people-moving in and around the city’s central district.

A survey of potential traffic hot spots, done on a bicycle by The Chronicle Herald, showed the peninsula was busy in some areas. But it seemed many concert-goers took note of the advance message about public transit — and used it. Metro Transit buses appeared to be doing a brisk business.

At the Halifax Commons concert site, there was a bit of a traffic buzz — albeit the pedestrian variety — as early as 11:30 a.m., because general-admission ticket holders wanted to be there the moment the gates opened at 1 p.m. to grab a premium spot near the stage. Streets by the concert site were well staffed by Halifax Regional Police.

'Jackass' boys deliver winner in debut

LOS ANGELES - Johnny Knoxville and his pals pulled another prank on Hollywood as their sequel of crazy stunts, "Jackass Number Two," beat a rush of serious movies to take the top spot at the weekend box office.

Paramount's "Jackass Number Two" debuted with $28.1 million, with Focus Features' " Jet Li's Fearless," featuring the martial-arts master in a saga set in China a century ago, opening in second place with $10.6 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The weekend's other new wide releases debuted weakly, with MGM's World War I tale "Flyboys" opening at No. 4 with $6 million and Sean Penn's political drama "All the King's Men" from Sony premiering at No. 7 with $3.8 million.

Overall box office receipts declined for the third-straight weekend, the top-12 movies taking in $81.9 million, down 7 percent from the same period last year. That follows a solid summer for Hollywood, whereas movie attendance began picking up this time last year after a prolonged summer slump.

"After a weak summer last year, we had a fairly strong fall," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations. "This year, we're seeing a reversal of what happened last year."

Based on the MTV show that featured Knoxville and his gang doing reckless stunts and dares, "Jackass Number Two" outstripped the opening weekend of 2002's "Jackass," which debuted with $22.8 million.

"Jackass Number Two" cost just $11.5 million to make and took in slightly more than that on Friday alone. Males accounted for two-thirds of the movie's audience, with 71 percent of the crowd younger than 25, according to Paramount.

Van Toffler, president of MTV's music and film group, said Knoxville and his "Jackass" cohorts were elated by the sequel's success.

"I think it was, 'Holy blank, we've done it again. What is wrong with the country?'" Toffler said.

"All the King's Men" stars Penn as a Southern demagogue inspired by Louisiana political kingpin Huey Long in a new adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. The film co-stars Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Anthony Hopkins, James Gandolfini and Patricia Clarkson.

Sony originally scheduled "All the King's Men" for release last December amid Academy Awards season but postponed it. Studio executives said the filmmakers would have had to rush to finish the film.

The extra time did not help the film, which generally was trashed by critics, with some reviewers calling Penn's flamboyant performance too over-the-top.

With such a luminous cast and pedigree (the 1949 version of "All the King's Men" won the best-picture Oscar and best-actor prize for Broderick Crawford), what went wrong with the new adaptation?

"I'm not sure," said Rory Bruer, head of distribution for Sony. "It's a movie that we love and believe in, and we hoped that it would perform better."

Warner Independent's whimsical fantasy "The Science of Sleep" opened strongly in limited release with $347,000 in 14 theaters.

Directed by Michel Gondry ("The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"), "The Science of Sleep" stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Charlotte Gainsbourg in the story of a young man whose weird dream life spills over into his waking world. The film expands to about 200 theaters this Friday.

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

1. "Jackass Number Two," $28.1 million.
2. "Jet Li's Fearless," $10.6 million.
3. "Gridiron Gang," $9.7 million.
4. "Flyboys," $6 million.
5. "Everyone's Hero," $4.75 million.
6. "The Black Dahlia," $4.4 million.
7. "All the King's Men," $3.8 million.
8. "The Covenant," $3.3 million.
9. "The Illusionist," $3.28 million.
10. "Little Miss Sunshine," $2.9 million.

CTV airs wrong episode of 'Anatomy'

TORONTO (CP) -- When did Dr. McDreamy finally profess his love for Meredith Grey? What happened to Izzie in the hours after her fiance Denny died? And is it finally curtains for The Chief and his wife?

Many Canadian fans of "Grey's Anatomy" were left puzzled by plot gaps and apparent inconsistencies Thursday night when CTV inadvertently aired the second episode of the season rather than the hotly anticipated premiere.

While the network blamed the mistake on a "satellite feed error," it was little consolation for viewers who had waited an entire summer to learn the fate of the libidinous interns at Seattle Grace Hospital.

"Can I just say that CTV is a crappy irresponsible network?" wrote one blogger, carmen16.

"I know errors happen, but this is one of the biggest shows on TV these days. (I'm) just not impressed."

"Stupid people who don't know how to push buttons right. I am most seriously displeased," posted another who identified herself as Lynda.

On CTV, the show airs at 8 p.m. ET, while the U.S. version airs at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.

Many fans who tuned in to CTV said they couldn't quite put their finger on what was wrong with the show.

"We were trying to figure out if they were just artfully leaving some gaps for the viewers to figure out what happened, or if indeed they were airing the wrong episode," said one blogger.

After the mistake became clear (ABC aired the correct version), fans took to the Internet, begging viewers who watched the CTV episode not to ruin it for them.

"Now that I know that Canada got next week's episode, I'm going to be frightened of spoilers constantly until next week!" wrote jasminelily.

"If you live in Canada, please don't include any spoilers about the second episode!" implored a blog on the USA Today website.

CTV spokesman Mike Cosentino said the network took in its regular satellite feed of the show thinking it was the season premiere.

"We were fed an incorrect show," he said Friday. "We recognize the scope of this situation."

The network has announced it will air the season premiere next Thursday, when it would have aired Episode 2.

The error came as "Grey's Anatomy" made its much-anticipated debut in a new Thursday night timeslot, a fact not lost on fans.

"After a whole summer of pimping the new timeslot, CTV showed the wrong episode of 'Grey's Anatomy' last night," said alias-elaina.

"How did they screw THAT up? Someone is so fired."

Cosentino called the CTV glitch a "good news/bad news scenario."

"The bad news is viewers missed Episode 1 and we're working on the right solution to remedy that, and the good news is -- Episode 2 is fantastic."

"South Park" creators look back 10 years

LOS ANGELES - Talk about a star-studded arrivals line. There they were: Tom Cruise, Jennifer Lopez, Steven Spielberg and Paris Hilton. Mel Gibson even showed up.

But this was the launch party for the 10th season of "South Park" and the celebrities were A-List — A for artificial. As in cardboard.

No matter, the smiling caricatures still loomed large along the red carpet at the Thursday-night affair to celebrate the controversial Emmy- and Peabody-winning animated Comedy Central series. The program first aired Aug. 13, 1997, and begins its new season Oct. 4.

Series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone topped the Hollywood back-lot party's real A-List, as in authentic.

"I remember when we started the show, we had an order for six episodes, and we're like, `This is great, because, when we're older, we'll always have these six shows,'" Parker told AP Television.

"And, it was actually Brian Graden (the executive who commissioned the original short film that became "South Park") who told us, `I think some day these will be six of 100.' And we're like, `You're crazy. There's no way.' And we're up to 150-something."

"South Park" spins around four elementary-school boys who slog out their days and nights in the quiet Colorado mountain town of South Park. Over the last decade, the boys have had to grapple with everything from problematic parents to the apocalypse.

Virtually everything and everyone in politics, pop culture and religion have been fair game for Parker and Stone's sharp satire. Tom Cruise and John Travolta got it on the chin in last season's Emmy-nominated "Trapped in the Closet" episode, which took on the Church of Scientology.

"We have not personally heard from any of them," Stone said.

"No, Tom hasn't called," Parker added.

"No, hasn't called us. We used to go over to his house for Friday-night dinners, but not any more," Stone joked.

Yet for all its craziness and cussin', the "South Park" franchise is nothing to laugh at, with top-selling DVDs, CDs, dolls, albums, a movie, reruns in worldwide syndication and soon-to-be 10 years and counting on Comedy Central's prime-time schedule.

Coinciding with next month's 10th-season launch is a DVD of Stone and Parker's 10 favorite "South Park" episodes, "South Park the Hits: Volume 1," which arrives in stores Oct. 3.

"We've said in a lot of interviews, `There's no way we're going to be 35 or 40 doing this show,' and here we are at 35, and we're doing the show," Stone said. "Now we'll say, `There's no way we're going to be 45 to 50 doing this show.'"

"I think when I have kids, it'll be over," Parker added. "Because that'll be the day, we'll have kids, and then one of us will come in the office and be like, `I think we should take the show in a different direction. I think we offended some people last night, and I don't know that that's good.'"

Stone: "Once we have kids, we'll do the George Lucas thing, and we'll go back and change all the old episodes."

Parker: "All the guns out of people's hands and stuff."

Stone: "Get all weird and wimpy."

Rupert Everett spills beans on Hollywood

LONDON - Rupert Everett hates Hollywood. The British actor, whose screen hits include "Another Country," "Shrek" and "My Best Friend's Wedding," says he's sick of the movie industry's hypocrisy and homophobia. He's even tired of celebrity — the whole glittering illusion deliciously evoked and eviscerated in his candid new autobiography "Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins."

"Hollywood is a mirage," said Everett, 47, reclining in jeans and plaid shirt on the sofa of a London hotel suite.

Movie stars are "blobs who don't say anything, aren't allowed to say anything. They are paid to shut up."

Fortunately, Everett can't help talking.

The book, for which he reportedly received a seven-figure advance, is a string of glittering anecdotes with edge, bonbons with a bitter center.

Everett is a waspish observer of the celebrity A-list, from Madonna ("she oozed sex appeal") to Julia Roberts ("beautiful and tinged with madness") to Sharon Stone ("utterly unhinged").

The book is a sort of Rough Guide to late 20th-century highlife — and lowlife — that moves from London to Paris, New York, St. Tropez, L.A.'s Laurel Canyon and Miami's South Beach. There are walk-on parts for Andy Warhol, Elizabeth Taylor, Orson Welles, Bob Dylan, Donatella Versace and a host of other luminaries. Everett seems to know everyone, remember all and recount everything.

Almost everything. Everett skates quickly over his brief stint as a London rent boy, although he cheerfully admits that he stalked the actor Ian McKellen.

The openly gay actor also discloses his handful of heterosexual affairs — with Paula Yates, wife of Bob Geldof, French actress Beatrice Dalle and Hollywood star Susan Sarandon.

The book is a feast for gossip fans, and Everett is an articulate and charming raconteur with a knack for a memorable image. At one point, a swimming pool is described as "shaped like a Xanax."

"I think what people will be really surprised about is the writing," said Antonia Hodgson, Everett's editor at British publisher Little, Brown. "It's not just another celebrity book.

"He's not so much interested in spilling the beans about a particular celebrity, but about showing what celebrity does to those people."

Everett says he was inspired by "The Moon's A Balloon," David Niven's literate, witty memoir of Hollywood's golden age.

"I also loved the prewar frenzy of Evelyn Waugh, that feeling of the end of the world coming," said Everett. "It seems to me that, especially through show business, everything is getting more and more feverish and faster and nastier and scarier.

"Entertainment is becoming the great decoy — we are so entertained, it's almost impossible for us to think about anything else. The only thing that has continuity in the news is Jennifer Lopez's bottom."

The book is also the story of Everett's lifelong flight from the conformity of an upper-class English upbringing that saw him sent away to a Catholic boarding school at the age of 7.

He recounts his early career as a youthful rebel and party animal, friend of prostitutes, addicts, divas and thieves. He says he has always been drawn to "the freaks, the overdoses and the suicides."

He says being gay "certainly wasn't acceptable in any of the arenas that were on offer to me. So I think I had an instinct to escape into a world that I thought would be more friendly."

Everett was disappointed to find showbiz "as middle-class and provincial" as the private school world he'd left behind.

"My imagination of show business was this red plush netherworld of drunks and sex maniacs and killers and freaks," he said. "It's not. My world is, because I've doggedly tried to create that world. But it's not in general."

Everett has often complained of Hollywood's homophobia, arguing his sexuality has stopped him getting the leading-man roles offered to his countryman Hugh Grant.

But he's also highly self-critical. Everett emerges from the book as ruthless and driven, a bit of a monster who confesses he "lied about everything. My age. My name. My background."

"I think the actor's geography, there's a hole in it somewhere," he said. "There's a hole in your identity, a black hole that you try and fill up with posturing."

For all his drive to be a star, Everett is ambivalent about success. The book recounts his highs — his breakthrough as an English schoolboy turned Soviet spy in "Another Country," his Hollywood triumph as Julia Roberts' gay pal "My Best Friend's Wedding" — and the many lows. These include the disastrous rock'n'roll saga "Hearts of Fire" and "The Next Best Thing," a limp comedy-drama co-starring Madonna.

At the height of his fame, after "My Best Friend's Wedding," he is recognized on the street as "the gay guy from that movie."

He yearns to be taken seriously as an actor, laments the superficiality of Hollywood, yet has reportedly resorted to Botox injections to maintain his lean, unlined good looks. It's working. The sculpted cheekbones are intact, the big, dark eyes as luminous as ever.

These days, he travels the world on behalf of the Global Fund against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria and declares showbiz "not very relevant."

"To be honest, for me it's not the time for show business," he said — although he's got a play, a movie and "a couple of TV things" in the works.

"Life behind a velvet rope — I never enjoyed it. I like going out, going to bars, going to clubs, hanging out on the street.

"I always thought an actor should be like a bodybuilder. His life should be like a muscle — it should be exercised and flexed and worked. Doing everything, experiencing as much as you can.

"It was a conscious decision for me to exist like the people I really admired on-screen — the Marlon Brandos, the Montgomery Clifts, the James Deans.

"You felt they had experienced everything. Their eyes were shocked and dead and alive and glowing like coals at the same time. And I think that was through experience, using your life as a tool. That's the way I wanted to conduct myself."

Halifax preps for Stones concert

HALIFAX (CP) - From her perch overlooking the Halifax Commons, Norma Boggs can see a beehive of roadies slaving over a tangle of rising steel. For days, Boggs has watched from her eighth-floor apartment balcony as preparations for the biggest rock concert in the city's history have gone on below.

On Saturday night, up to 60,000 people are expected to gather on the Commons to see the legendary Rolling Stones and three other acts perform.

"I never thought they would ever play here, let alone practically in my backyard," said Boggs, who will watch the show with family and friends from her balcony across from the park.

"We were out there with binoculars today watching them set up. It's like a small city being built out there."

For the past week, about 100 roadies have unloaded 78 tractor-trailer loads of equipment, including an 8 1/2-storey stage being erected by four heavy-lift cranes.

The Commons, a sprawling recreational greenspace in the heart of Halifax, isn't your typical setting for a large, loud rock show.

Thousands of people live in the Victorian-style homes and high-rise apartments ringing the park, or on surrounding tree-lined streets.

Many have complained about the congestion and noise the concert will produce.

Others worry that 60,000 pairs of feet and thousands of tonnes of equipment will destroy the Commons' verdant sports fields, especially if it rains.

Jill Ceccolini likes the Stones and even travelled to Toronto in the 1990s to see them. But she isn't thrilled to see them again in what amounts to her front yard.

"This is a mixed residential neighbourhood of homeowners, businesses and people who are renting," she said. "Having this kind of event going on across the street really impacts our lives."

Ceccolini and her family live in a house almost directly behind the massive stage. For days, they've listened to the hum of generators and round-the-clock construction work.

But more than that, Ceccolini has a philosophical problem with a public space being used for a money-making venture.

"I love that about the Commons," she said. "It's not for any one group of people and people don't need to pay to use it."

By contrast, newspaper columnist Marilla Stephenson said she's glad the Stones are coming to town.

"If all the groaners, whiners and complainers don't stop trying to make this city as dead as the people in the historic graveyards, there's going to be no future for this city," said Stephenson, who writes for the Halifax Chronicle-Herald.

"Any time someone tries to do something here, people seem to line up and put their hands out for compensation after complaining. I get pretty fed up with it. It's really starting to hold this city back."

In 1984, about 30,000 people stood in driving rain as Pope John Paul II held at papal mass on the Commons.

But there has never been a rock concert on the site and organizers are hinting more could follow if this one is a hit.

"It's an absolutely beautiful site," Ken Craig of Donald K. Donald, the show's Montreal promoter, told the Halifax Daily News. "The whole industry is seeing how this show goes because it's a new site."

The Nova Scotia and municipal governments are forking over $240,000 to help pay for the concert, which will include performances by rapper Kanye West, shock-rocker Alice Cooper and alt-rockers Sloan.

The money will help cover the cost of extra policing that night and to repair any damage.

Joan Massey, the provincial NDP's tourism critic, believes the money would be better spent elsewhere.

"The government increased tourism funding by just $388,000 in the summer budget and has blown a large chunk of that on cleaning up after the Rolling Stones - some of the richest musicians in the world," she said.

For Boggs, though, it's all about the thrill of seeing a band that typically shuns smaller places like Halifax.

"It's only one day, right? Then everything is back to normal," she said of the inconvenience.

"I've never seen them in person and I never thought I ever would, so this is quite a treat."

Sloan excited to open for Stones

HALIFAX - It's a big deal when guitar pop quartet Sloan returns home to Halifax to play a show, but opening for The Rolling Stones on the Halifax Common has to be the biggest deal yet.

Not only is it exciting, but there's something poetic about the event and the locale for guitarist Jay Ferguson, who began his musical career 20 years ago with his first band Deluxe Boys just, if you'll excuse the pun, a stone's throw away.

"I got an e-mail from Walter Kemp the other day, who was the first drummer for the Deluxe Boys," Ferguson explains over the phone from Toronto. "He couldn't believe we're playing with The Rolling Stones, because kitty-corner to the Commons is Walter's house, where we had our very first practice in the living room, right behind the Holiday Inn on Pepperell.

"It was John Gould, Walter and myself, with Walter's grandfather sitting in the dining room very disgruntled while we plowed through

Route 66. So it's kind of come full circle, from covering the Stones in Walter's living room to opening for them across the street."

Saturday's show won't be Sloan's first encounter with the Stones the band was asked to open for them for two nights in Boston in January -- but playing in front of tens of thousands of fellow Maritimers is still not the sort of experience you take lightly.

"It's surreal for me, for sure, but pretty exciting. My joke is, 'Yeah, the Stones, we already played with them, whatever,' " laughs Ferguson. "But those two shows in Boston were fantastic. We got to meet them, and it was outrageous seeing them face to face, it's a pretty big thing. Obviously to them it's "Yeah, whatever.' But to me, who's been a Stones fan for the better part of 25 years or something like that, it's pretty exciting. I mean, they were lovely, and they were gentlemen, and it was very thoughtful that we got on the Halifax lineup.

"I'm sure it's not like Mick Jagger's pounding the table saying, "We must have Sloan back! They were such lovely lads!' It has more to do with promoters and all that. But I think our band was easy to deal with, and we got along with their crew, and it was more like, "Hey, it's Sloan's hometown, let's have them back.' So it's a very nice feeling being invited back to play with The Rolling Stones."

The other big news for Sloan this week is the release on Tuesday of its first CD of new material in three years, the mammoth 30-song collection Never Hear the End of It.

The album sees the return of drummer Andrew Scott to the songwriting fold and bears a cornucopia of styles ranging from pop to psychedelia, in a broader display of the members' personal tastes than the power-chord packed Action Pact, released in 2003.

After having a couple of years to write new songs, Sloan started making the record in February in its warehouse rehearsal space with live soundman Nick Detoro taking over production duties. Recording continued over the summer, with new songs being added all the time, and then it was time to take care of the artwork and photos, followed by rehearsing for the upcoming shows.

"I'm actually looking forward to touring, because it'll be like a vacation," says Ferguson. " I'm just going to zone out and watch movies and relax when we're not playing. I have to get out of town to relax, basically."

The first taste of Never Hear the End of It was Ferguson's catchy single Who Taught You to Live Like That, which he describes as a cross between T-Rex and Instant Karma. But the record also veers from the pure aggression of Patrick Pentland's Hardcore ("Patrick was wondering if we should do it, and we said, "Yeah!' ") to Scott's trippy Golden Eyes. "It might take longer to get into, but that doesn't bother me," says Ferguson of the record whose title is a sly wink at its 72-minute length. "I think it'll have a longer life because of that.

"I like the idea that on the White Album, The Beatles did things that were really outside of the box, like Honey Pie, which sounded like something from the '20s. So doing something like Hardcore is the other extreme. I was really into the idea of making an album that is all over the place, changing from song to song, with really short songs, and some longer songs, and having it all connected up.

"I think we wanted to do something new, for fun, and it made sense because there were so many songs to choose from. And Chris and I had both fantasized about doing a double album at some point."

So this week Sloan fans get two fantasies at the same time.

'U2byU2': A portrait by the artists

Arguably the greatest rock band on the planet, U2 now offers the definitive version of how it got there.

U2byU2 (HarperCollins, $39.95) has 1,500-plus images and a rich band autobiography culled from 150 hours of interviews with singer Bono, guitarist The Edge, bassist Adam Clayton, drummer Larry Mullen Jr. and manager Paul McGuinness.

"We felt it was important to get the story on record, but that's not to say we're not going to go on a good many more years," he says. "This is the story thus far."

In this exclusive excerpt, the band has decamped to Berlin to record Achtung Baby. They arrive Oct. 3, 1990, the official day of Germany's reunification, but soon realize their vision and brotherhood is anything but unified.

Edge: We went to Berlin with a lot of ideas but most of them were very skeletal and undeveloped. They were directions and hints that we hoped would become fully-fledged songs when we kicked them around in rehearsal but unfortunately, since a lot of them started out from unusual origins, sometimes drum machines, sometimes just strange sounds, they didn't sound very good when the band tried to play them. There was an awkward phase where things weren't working out and there were two ways to analyze it. Adam and Larry were convinced the song ideas were crap and Bono and I thought the fault lay with the band.

Larry: I thought this might be the end. We had been through tough circumstances before and found our way out, but it was always outside influences that we were fighting against. For the first time ever it felt like the cracks were within. And that was a much more difficult situation to negotiate.

Bono: What we thought were just hairline cracks that could be easily fixed turned out to be more serious, the walls needed underpinning, we had to put down new foundations or the house would fall down. In fact it was falling down all around us. We were running up hotel bills and we had professional people, the U2 crew, staring at our averageness and scratching their heads and wondering if maybe they'd have been better off working for Bruce Springsteen. We came face to face with our limitations as a group on a lot of levels, playing and songwriting. When you're at sea the smartest thing to do is to find some dry land as quick as possible. So I think Larry and Adam were just anxious: "Stop messing around with all this electronica, let's get back to doing what we do. Because all this experimental stuff isn't working very well, is it? And, by the way, Clockwork Orange was (expletive)." There was a bit of that going on. "Did somebody say we were a rock band?" As you were walking down the corridor, you'd overhear that kind of remark.

Larry: In the past, when we were writing music, we would be in a room playing and the discussion was always along the lines of: "I don't like that particular part, try something else." There seemed to be consensus. We were starting on a blank page to a large degree, perhaps with just a guitar or melody or a riff or a vocal idea. So we started at the same place and ended at the same place. This time around, it wasn't a blank page. The parameters were already set, by drum machines, loops and synth pads. And it's kind of hard to embrace new rules when you don't understand them.

Adam: We weren't getting anywhere until One fell into our laps and suddenly we hit a groove.

Bono: Maybe "great" is what happens when "very good" gets tired. We kind of out-stared the average, it blinked first and One arrived.

Edge: I was trying to take one of our half finished ideas and give it some inspiration. I went off into another room and developed a couple of different chord progressions, neither of which actually worked where they were supposed to. (Producer) Danny Lanois said, "What happens if you play both of them, one into the next?" I was playing acoustic guitar and Bono got on the microphone and started improvising melodies and within a few minutes we had the bones of the song, melodically, structurally and even lyrically.

Bono: The words just fell out of the sky, a gift. We had a request from the Dalai Lama to participate in a festival called Oneness. I love and respect the Dalai Lama but there was something a little bit "let's hold hands" hippie to me about this particular event. I am in awe of the Tibetan position on non-violence but this event didn't strike a chord. I sent him back a note saying, "One — but not the same."

Edge: At the instant we were recording it, I got a very strong sense of its power. We were all playing together in the big recording room, a huge, eerie ballroom full of ghosts of the war, and everything fell into place. It was a reassuring moment, when everyone finally went, "Oh, great, this album has started." It's the reason you're in a band — when the spirit descends upon you and you create something truly affecting. One is an incredibly moving piece. It hits straight into the heart.

Larry: It was similar to the way we had recorded in the past. In some ways it was a sign that the blank page approach was still valid. Everything was not broken.

New cast members add spice to "Law & Order"

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Yes, "Law & Order" is back for another season (its 17th), which is a bit like saying the sun is back for another rise. Four more seasons and it ties "Gunsmoke" as the longest-running drama in primetime history, and it would be a mistake to bet against precisely that ultimately happening. Creator Dick Wolf, in fact, has said he is determined to achieve nothing less.

It's easy to see why this procedural is virtually trend-proof and cancel-resistant. You get crime, punishment, action, solid character interplay and a nice, generally tidy resolution within the space of 48 minutes. Life itself should be so uncannily reliable. And we have one more detail that is nothing if not splendidly redundant: There's new regular cast incorporated seamlessly into the "L&O" neighborhood. Out are Dennis Farina and Annie Parisse, in are Milena Govich and Alana De La Garza in moves that carry a nice little dollop of diversity.

Govich (a regular on Wolf's short-lived "Conviction") plays Detective Nina Cassady. Meanwhile, De La Garza (who logged a season on "CSI: Miami") portrays assistant DA Connie Rubirosa, the show's first Latina prosecutor. It's notable that a show on the air this long can still achieve "firsts" of anything.

The season opener, titled "Fame," carries forward the comfy and compelling "L&O" formula, with a cop killing story line that dances around the edges of headline issues: paparazzi, immature young starlets a la Lindsay Lohan, a self-involved white rapper and knotty details of journalistic shield laws. Jesse L. Martin, S. Epatha Merkerson and Sam Waterston are back to provide the guiding backbone of a clockwork concept that just keeps rolling along, a singular oasis of creative stability in a notoriously fickle television world. Long live the king.

Oh boy! "Jackass" set to lead U.S. box office

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Between new releases "Jackass Number Two," the sure winner at the weekend box office, and " Jet Li's Fearless," male youngsters are again the primary target of Hollywood studios.

The question is, can the coveted demographic possibly support both films, as well as reigning champ "Gridiron Gang," which opened to $14.4 million last weekend?

Add on the fact that the World War One aerial drama "Flyboys" is targeting older males and the political saga "All the King's Men" is out to reach adults, and one must wonder what teenage girls will be doing this weekend.

Paramount Pictures' "Jackass" stars Johnny Knoxville and his gang of knuckleheads, who will stun audiences again with their stupid human tricks. Industry insiders expect the R-rated film to open in the neighborhood of the $22.7 million garnered by 2002's "Jackass: The Movie." But with the box office down the past two weekends, underperforming is a possibility. Directed by Jeff Tremaine, who shot the original, "Jackass" reunites Knoxville with cohorts Bam Margera, Chris Pontius and Steve-O, among others.

"Fearless," a martial arts film from Rogue Pictures, the genre unit of Focus Features, is expected to open in the $9 million-$11 million range. Based on the true-life tale of Huo Yuanjia (Li), the founder and spiritual guru of the Jin Wu Sports Federation, the PG-13 film is directed by Ronny Yu. Jet Li most recently starred in last year's "Unleashed," which opened to $10.9 million.

Sony Pictures' "King's Men," from director Steven Zaillian, originally was set to bow last year at this time but was delayed in postproduction. The critics' early response has not been kind, and handicappers are putting the opening gross in the $8 million-$10 million range.

A remake of the 1949 film based on Robert Penn Warren's novel about a fictional Louisiana governor modeled on Huey Long, "King's Men" stars Sean Penn as populist governor Willie Stark. With a cast that includes Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins, Kate Winslet, Mark Ruffalo and James Gandolfini, the film has been touted for awards consideration, though its reception at this month's Toronto International Film Festival could present problems.

MGM's "Flyboys" centers on the Lafayette Escadrille -- Americans who volunteered for the French military before the U.S. entered the war. The PG-13 release stars James Franco and Jean Reno. Producer Dean Devlin was hoping for a bow in the $10 million range, but tracking, strongest with older males, is showing that about $6 million is more likely.

In limited release, the Weinstein Co. will open the R-rated "Feast" in 146 theaters. A Project Greenlight production, the film will play only Friday and Saturday night. Directed by John Gulager, the story revolves around a group of drinkers in a remote bar who are trapped and preyed upon by a band of creatures.

Warner Independent Pictures will open Michel Gondry's "The Science of Sleep" in 14 theaters. The R-rated film stars Gael Garcia Bernal as a man whose dreams invade his waking life. Charlotte Gainsbourg co-stars in the film, which received primarily positive reviews at its festival screenings.

Sony Pictures Classics will open the documentary "American Hardcore" in New York. From director Paul Rachman and writer Steven Blush, the film chronicles the U.S. punk movement from 1980-86.

Sven Nykvist, cinematographer for Bergman, dead at 83

Cinematographer Sven Nykvist, who helped create the distinctive look of films by director Ingmar Bergman, has died.

Nykvist, 83, died Wednesday at a Stockholm nursing home where he was being treated for aphasia, a form of dementia, according to his son, Carl-Gusaf Nykvist.

The Swedish cinematographer won Academy Awards for his work on the 1973 Bergman film Cries and Whispers and 1982's Fanny and Alexander.

His partnership with Bergman lasted 30 years, beginning in 1954 with Sawdust and Tinsel.

Nykvist was a master of lighting and expressing emotion through the camera throughout his career.

"He was called 'the master of light' because of the moods and atmospheres he could create with light. It was a near impossibility to create the moods he created," said Carl-Gustaf Nykvist, who directed a documentary on his father called Light Keeps Me Company.

Born to a missionary couple, Nykvist was raised in a religious household where his access to the movies was restricted.

He became an assistant cameraman in 1941 at the age of 19 and worked on a series of small films that didn't make it out of Sweden before his collaboration with Bergman.

He first gained acclaim for his work on Bergman's frightening and atmospheric Virgin Spring.

Nykvist is known for his naturalistic approach to light, allowing characters to walk in and out of shadow.

His work strongly influenced Hollywood in its move toward more a realistic look in film.

Nykvist also worked with Canadian director Norman Jewison on Agnes of God and with Bergman admirer Woody Allen on Crimes and Misdemeanors and Celebrity.

Among Nykvist's last movies were Sleepless in Seattle, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, directed by Swede Lasse Hallstrom, and 1999's Curtain Call.

"Sven Nykvist was somewhat of a father figure for me," Hallstrom said in an interview with Swedish news agency TT.

"He taught me very much during the movies we made together. He was the one who got Americans and the world to realize that lighting could be simple and realistic."

Nykvist is survived by his son, daughter-in-law, Helena Berlin, and grandchildren, Sonia Sondell and Marilde Nykvist. His wife, Ulrika, died in 1982.

"SNL" Drops Sanz, Parnell, Mitchell

Come next week, Studio 8H is going to be a little emptier than usual.

After nearly a month of speculation regarding the fates of several Saturday Night Live castmembers, roundabout confirmation finally arrives from NBC: Regulars Chris Parnell, Horatio Sanz and Finesse Mitchell won't be returning to the late night staple.

The non-announcement was made by simply omitting the players' names from a press release touting the start of the show's 32nd season, though a rep for the network denied there was any bad blood between the M.I.A. cast and Svengali producer Lorne Michaels--or that their departure was the result
of a firing.

"I believe there were mutual choices made," NBC rep Marc Liepis told E! Online. "When you're on the show for eight years, I don't think you look at it as a firing."

Parnell, Sanz and Mitchell, who have been part of the show for eight years, eight years and three years, respectively, have yet to comment on their non-return, though if past remarks are any indication, the decision to part hardly seems mutual.

"I haven't been approached with anything that's led me to believe I won't be back," Sanz told the Chicago Sun-Times less than a month ago. "I definitely enjoy the job and would like to stick with it."

As for Mitchell, his alleged axing is the most surprising, as speculation has pegged fellow castmember Kenan Thompson, who returns this fall, as the third man out. Darrell Hammond, whose 11 seasons on the show mark a series best, is also in the clear, returning to the show despite murmurs that he, too, may have performed his last impression.

The triple departure creates something of a mass exodus from the show of longtime cast, though the others appear to be slightly more voluntary--at least on the surface.

Over the summer, Tina Fey and Rachel Dratch confirmed they were leaving the show to star in the NBC comedy 30 Rock, set behind the scenes at a SNL-like variety show produced by Michaels and costarring fellow alum Tracy Morgan.

Of course, some departees are bouncing back quicker than others.

According to NBC's Website, Parnell, whose "Lazy Sunday" rap with Andy Samberg was one of last season's highlights, is currently shooting the sitcom Thick & Thin for the Peacock net. As for Mitchell and Sanz, neither appears to have a new project in the works.

While Rockefeller Center will be without five of its most familiar faces this fall, there are no current plans to fill the gap.

According to a statement from NBC, no new regular players have been added to the late night mix, though several of the remaining funnymen and women will see various changes to their onscreen roles.

Fey's departure paves the way for a new face to join Amy Poehler at the "Weekend Update" desk, and while no successors have been formally named, early reports peg Jason Sudeikis and Seth Meyers as the top candidates.

Meyers also returns as head writer for the show, a title he previously shared with Fey.

Saturday Night Live kicks off its new season Sept. 30, with host Dane Cook and musical guest The Killers.

"Smart" marketing: Time-Life sells entire series

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - HBO Video is bucking TV-DVD tradition when it releases "Get Smart" on DVD this year.

Instead of rolling out season sets to retailers, HBO is issuing the entire series, all at once, and giving mail-order giant Time-Life a one-year exclusive.

"'Get Smart' is among the most-requested classic TV series, yet because of the retail space squeeze we needed a way to make the series stand out," HBO Video president Henry McGee said.

"Get Smart: The Complete Collection" goes on sale November 15 exclusively through the Time-Life Web site. The collection includes all 138 episodes from the spy spoof series' 1965-70 network run, spread out over 25 discs. It is priced at $199.96. The series will be released to retail stores in fall 2007.

Time-Life and HBO spent nearly a year restoring and digitally remastering each original episode, not the shorter cuts that have lived on in syndication.

"This incredible restoration means that finally 'Get Smart' can be seen the way it was meant to be seen," said Leonard Stern, executive producer of the series.

DVD producer Paul Brownstein was hired to oversee production of the DVD package, and he came up with more than 10 hours of bonus materials, including rare bloopers, network promotional spots, commercials and the hourlong 75th birthday roast of star Don Adams at the Playboy Mansion in 1998. Adams died last year.

Gord Lacey, who runs the popular http://www.TVShowsOnDVD.com Web site, said "Get Smart" is No. 3 on the site's list of most-requested TV shows not yet out, behind "The Wonder Years" and the live-action "Batman."

"Fans have been waiting to get their hands on 'Get Smart' for years, and now they're being rewarded with the complete series loaded with special features," Lacey said. "I can't imagine anyone complaining about the release Time-Life has put together -- it sounds amazing."

Other bonus materials on the "Get Smart" collection include commentaries by Stern, series co-creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, actors Barbara Feldon, Bernie Kopell and Bill Dana, and guest stars Don Rickles and James Caan. Also included will be clips from the 2003 Museum of Television & Radio's "Get Smart Reunion" seminar, the last time the series' key alumni were together on the same stage.

Sirius to launch Metropolitan Opera channel

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. on Wednesday said it will launch a channel programmed primarily by New York's Metropolitan Opera, which will feature live and archived broadcasts.

Terms were not disclosed, but Sirius said it was a multiyear

deal. The channel debuts on September 25, and will replace Sirius' current "Classical Voices" channel.

Sirius and rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. are seeking to woo consumers to their pay-radio services, which cost about $13 a month. XM's channels include "VOX," which showcases vocal classical music selections.

Sirius said: "This is a significant step in our plans to use digital technology to relay our extraordinary content," said Peter Gelb, General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera.

Additional vocal content will complement the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts, Sirius added.

Fergie chats about solo album

NEW YORK (AP) - In the basement of a trendy downtown hotel, Fergie sits waiting at the head of a large wooden table, scribbling notes on a yellow legal pad.

The sexy, spicy element of the Black Eyed Peas apologizes for wanting to meet in this stuffy, angular room rather than the trendy Asian restaurant first suggested.

"I just couldn't deal with a New York night out," she says.

She also apologizes for wearing a black Adidas track suit and knit cap - she's simply not up for glamour today. Her nails are scuffed and bitten. She apologizes for that, too.

It's a different image of a performer more often seen strutting her stuff in something small, expensive and tight, her hips wiggling, boasting about her "lovely lady lumps."

"Maybe I'll get on the table and dance," she says with a smile.

The 31-year-old is preoccupied these days with her solo debut CD "The Dutchess," an eclectic collection of 13 songs she hopes will prove she's more than just a pretty Pea.

Containing everything from torch songs ("All That I Got," "Finally") to bouncy pop ("Fergalicious," "Clumsy"), reggae ("Voodoo Doll") and even techno ("Glamorous"), the album has germinated for years and represents her wide musical influences.

"That is my truth and makes me who I am," says Fergie, born Stacy Ann Ferguson. "If I'd only done one style, that wouldn't have been a truthful representation of me."

Lyric-wise, "The Dutchess" - a riff on how her name is similar to that of Britain's Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson - offers a more introspective Fergie, a woman willing to talk about her loves, her critics and her former meth addiction.

"There are a lot of times when I really dig deep on this album whereas, with the guys, I don't know if there's enough of a platform to go into all of my drama or love affairs," she says.

"I think it's important to represent who I am in all facets," she adds. "That's why I've talked about my struggle with drugs. I don't want to talk about it all the time because it's not a part of my life any more but I'm not running from it."

Based on the success of the saucy first single "London Bridge," Fergie shouldn't stress. A late entry for song of the summer, it sat atop the Billboard singles chart for three weeks - not to mention all it did for Anglo-American relations.

"It was a huge landmark day for me. I was crying - happy crying - and running around the house calling everybody," she says when the song hit No. 1. "For it to finally happen and for the song to be successful, it's really rewarding."

The rest of the CD - co-written by Fergie and produced by Ron Fair, DJ Mormile and will.i.am, the Peas' lead lyricist - features samples from Little Richard, The Commodores and The Temptations. Guests include John Legend, Ludacris and Rita Marley.

"Once people get this album and hear what she's capable of as a singer and writer, I think that's when the roof blows off it," says Fair, chairman of Geffen Records. "That's when she's not just a little trifling pop girl doing disposable hits."

Fergie, raised in Whittier, Calif., may have seemed destined for that fate when she emerged at age seven in the kiddie TV band Kids Incorporated, later graduating to the pop girl group Wild Orchid in the 1990s.

Wanting to make it on her own, she approached will.i.am with the hope of convincing him to help create a solo CD. She had seen the Peas live in 1998 - before they were multiplatinum sensations - and was an enormous fan.

She started off in a kind of apprenticeship, adding her booming, soulful backing vocals to what would be the band's third album, "Elephunk," which had hits like "Where's the Love" and the Grammy Award-winning "Let's Get It Started." By the time will.i.am - together with bandmates Taboo and apl.de.ap - left for a tour of Australia in 2003, Fergie was their fourth member.

"I didn't plan to ever be in the band, but as things organically grew, and I started working with them for my solo album, there was some point where we made that decision," she says. "I just went with my gut."

Joining a tight hip-hop band that thrived onstage was more difficult than it seemed. Fergie held back at first until she could learn how to roll with the ad-libs and pick her spots.

There were also the catcalls and ire from long-term fans of the Peas who didn't like the band's blossoming mainstream popularity - blaming it, in part, on the newest blond Pea.

"It does get painful sometimes," she says. "I actually really had to pep-talk myself so that I could overcome those fears. It's hard when someone's sitting there staring at you. Or even mad-dogging you.

"Now I just get in their face."

In 2005, the group's "Monkey Business" turned into another multiplatinum success thanks to "My Humps," "Pump It" and "Don't Phunk with My Heart," which won another Grammy.

Despite the Peas' triumphs since she came aboard, she's loathe to single out herself as the reason behind their success: "I think it has to do with us. I think we all are responsible for the success of these albums," she says. "It's a team effort."

But it's all about Fergie on "The Dutchess." On the new album, she mixes her vulnerable and fierce sides. "Would you love me/If I didn't work out/Or didn't change my natural hair?" she asks a lover in "All That I Got." On "London Bridge," she threatens to mace pushy photographers and boasts: "I'm such a lady, but I'm dancin' like a ho."

"It's poking fun at certain things. I'm really not going to spray the paparazzi with mace - I don't know if you know that about me," she says, smiling.

"I'm not a promiscuous girl - like I talk about in 'Clumsy,' I'm always the girl with the boyfriend in serious relationships - but I do like to play with my sexuality. I don't think that means I have to live in a morgue," she says (Fergie and "Las Vegas" hunk Josh Duhamel have been dating for some time).

Fergie thinks she'll be able to open up even more on the next Black Eyed Peas album - no, she insists, they're not breaking up - because her solo CD will let fans "get me and know who I am."

"Sometimes I feel like the underdog. But I like that because then more people will be surprised when they do see something that they like from me," she says. "I've learned that I can't please everybody."

Pitt to Replace Cruise On Next Mission?

Brad Pitt has been rumored to be the next star of the Mission Impossible movie franchise.

The British tabloid This Is London reports the next chapter in the Mission Impossible film series has Brad Pitt replacing Tom Cruise, which will reportedly give Pitt the biggest paycheque in the history of Hollywood film-making.

One source tells the publication, "MI:IV will not include Cruise's character, agent Ethan Hunt. They're considering a brief mention, saying Hunt retired to live a safe life with his new wife.

They're set on Brad taking over as a gutsy new head operative who puts together his own unique team of specialists."

The news comes just one month after Paramount Pictures ended their 14-year relationship with Cruise and his production company, stating the actor's recent behavior as the reason for the separation.

Def Leppard Expands 'Hysteria' For 20th Anniversary

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of its best-selling album, Def Leppard will reissue "Hysteria" as a two-CD package Oct. 24 via Bludgeon Riffola/Island/UME. Beyond a remastered edition of the original album, the new edition includes a bonus disc with a host of non-album tracks first issued during the period.

Among them are the studio B-sides "Tear It Down," "Ride Into the Sun," "I Wanna Be Your Hero" and "Ring of Fire," live versions of "Elected," "Love And Affection" and "Billy's Got a Gun" recorded in Holland in July 1987 and extended mixes of five tracks.

"Hysteria" has sold more than 18 million copies worldwide, according to the label, and spawned six top 20 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including the top 10s "Love Bites," "Pour Some Sugar on Me," "Armageddon It," and "Hysteria."

Def Leppard is on the road with Journey through mid-November in support of its recent covers album, "Yeah!," which debuted at No. 16 on The Billboard 200.

Hannibal Lecter returns for holiday season

TORONTO (Reuters) - Call it "Hannibal Lecter, the early years." After a silence of seven years, author Thomas Harris has written a new book featuring fictional serial killer/cannibal Hannibal Lecter, famously played in films by Anthony Hopkins.

The book, "Hannibal Rising," will be in stores on December 5 with a first printing of 1.5 million copies and just in time for the Christmas sales season, Delacorte Press, an imprint of the Bantam Dell Publishing Group, said on Tuesday.

The 356-page novel, a last-minute addition to Delacorte's list of new books for the holiday season, is the fourth book dealing with the cannibalistic doctor and chronicles his early years, Bantam publisher Irwyn Applebaum said.

Applebaum said the book was an eagerly awaited part of the story but had taken seven years since the last novel in the series, "Hannibal," as Harris, a native of Mississippi, does not write at a "prolific pace" for a popular novelist.

"This villain has fascinated readers. It's very unusual for a character to stay alive that long in the imagination of readers," Applebaum told Reuters.

Lecter first appeared in print in Harris' 1981 book "Red Dragon" and then in 1988 in "Silence of the Lambs."

But he became widely known through the 1991 Oscar-winning movie "Silence of the Lambs," starring Hopkins and Jodie Foster as FBI trainee-turned-agent Clarice Starling.

The film ends with Lecter, who enjoys a glass of Chianti as he devours human liver, saying he has to go: "I do wish we could chat longer, but I'm having an old friend for dinner."

In "Hannibal Rising" readers learn about Lecter's early life in Eastern Europe from age 6 to 20, following the death of his entire family during World War Two.

A film version of the new novel from a screenplay by Harris is expected to be released in February 2007.

Harris' only novel not dealing with Lecter is his first, "Black Sunday" in 1975, a best seller about a terrorist plot to blow up the Super Bowl with a bomb-laden blimp.

'South Park' celebrates with best-of DVD

LOS ANGELES - "South Park" creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker say that choosing their favorite episode would be like choosing between their children. Not that they're above that.

Stone and Parker hand-picked their 10 most beloved episodes of the long-running Comedy Central show to appear on the new "South Park The Hits: Volume 1" DVD, in stores Oct. 3.

The new DVD also includes four bonus episodes and "The Spirit of Christmas," a never-released animated short.

"South Park" first aired Aug. 13, 1997. It begins its tenth season on Comedy Central on Oct. 4.

Mariah, Chilis, Peas, Nickelback Top AMA Noms

With three nominations each, Mariah Carey, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Black Eyed Peas and Nickelback lead the field for the 2006 American Music Awards, to be broadcast live by ABC on Nov. 21 from Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium. Mary J. Blige, Kelly Clarkson, Eminem, Jamie Foxx, Pussycat Dolls, Rascal Flatts, T.I., Carrie Underwood and Kanye West snared two nominations each.

Carey is up for favorite female pop/rock and soul/R&B artist as well as favorite soul/R&B album for "The Emancipation of Mimi," while the Chili Peppers and Nickelback both scored nods for favorite band, duo or group and favorite pop/rock album.

Chamillionaire, Pussycat Dolls and Carrie Underwood will vie for favorite new breakthrough artist. Winners will be chosen by a 20,000-strong sampling of U.S. residents.

Here are the 2006 American Music Awards nominees:

Pop/Rock

Favorite male artist:
Nick Lachey
Sean Paul
Kanye West

Favorite female artist:
Mariah Carey
Kelly Clarkson
Nelly Furtado

Favorite band, duo or group:
Nickelback
Pussycat Dolls
Red Hot Chili Peppers

Favorite album:
"All the Right Reasons," Nickelback
"Stadium Arcadium," Red Hot Chili Peppers
"High School Musical," Various Artists

Country

Favorite male artist:
Kenny Chesney
Toby Keith
Keith Urban

Favorite female artist:
Faith Hill
Carrie Underwood
Gretchen Wilson

Favorite band, duo or group:
Brooks & Dunn
Montgomery Gentry
Rascal Flatts

Favorite album:
"Legend of Johnny Cash," Johnny Cash
"Greatest Hits Volume 2," Tim McGraw
"Me And My Gang," Rascal Flatts

Soul/R&B

Favorite male artist:
Chris Brown
Jamie Foxx
NE-YO

Favorite female artist:
Mary J. Blige
Mariah Carey
Keyshia Cole

Favorite band, duo or group:
Black Eyed Peas
The Isley Brothers
Jagged Edge

Favorite album
"The Breakthrough," Mary J. Blige
"The Emancipation of Mimi," Mariah Carey
"Unpredictable," Jamie Foxx

Rap/hip-hop

Favorite male artist:
Eminem
T.I.
Kanye West

Favorite band, duo or group:
Black Eyed Peas
Dem Franchize Boyz
Three 6 Mafia

Favorite album:
"Monkey Business," Black Eyed Peas
"Curtain Call," Eminem
"King," T.I.

Adult contemporary

Favorite Artist:
Michael Buble
Kelly Clarkson
Rob Thomas

Alternative

Favorite artist:
Nickelback
Pearl Jam
Red Hot Chili Peppers

Latin

Favorite artist:
Daddy Yankee
Don Omar
Shakira

Contemporary inspirational

Favorite artist:
Aly & AJ
Casting Crowns
Kirk Franklin

Favorite new breakthrough artist:

Chamillionaire
Pussycat Dolls
Carrie Underwood

The Couch Potato Report - September 23rd, 2006

This week The Couch Potato Report shines the spotlight on the rocket and some hard candy.

Last week on The Couch Potato Report I stated “One of the hardest types of films to make are biographies.”

I went on to say that “Movies are movies and since they are made to entertain and make money, sometimes facts and situations have to be changed for "cinematic" reasons.” And I explained that filmmakers call this "creative license."

When you are oblivious to what is fact and what is fiction, the story of a person’s life mixed with “creative license” can make for a very entertaining movie.

For instance, the Johnny Cash Biography WALK THE LINE features several very engaging scenes with Cash on tour with Elvis.

But, while the two did know each other in real life, they were never on tour together.

Since I didn’t know that, and it seemed plausible, I was entertained by it.

I was also entertained by the Canadian film THE ROCKET about Maurice “The Rocket” Richard.

This is a perfect example of how when you are oblivious to what is fact and what is fiction, the story of a person’s life mixed with “creative license” can make for a very entertaining movie.

And THE ROCKET is a very entertaining movie.

The first time I saw this film about the great Montreal Canadiens right-winger was at the theatre in Montreal that stands on the land where The Forum used to be. In that same space hockey fans watched Richard from his debut in 1942 until he retired in 1960. It was a unique feeling.

A feeling that I was sure had added to the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed the film, even though I am a Toronto Maple Leafs fan, and as such I can never acknowledge the greatness of the Montreal Canadiens or their players.

Then this week I sat down in my living room, far away from Montreal, and I watched THE ROCKET again.

And I was thoroughly entertained…again.

And even if you don’t like the Montreal Canadiens either, or you aren’t a fan of sports at all, I still think you will enjoy THE ROCKET.

It isn’t just the story of an athlete; it is the story of a person.

In the film THE ROCKET Maurice Richard is a man with a sole passion – playing hockey. After spending his days working at the factory, he throws himself body and soul into the game to pursue his dream.

He isn’t the biggest player on the ice, and he isn’t the most talented, but through his passion he becomes the best.

His coach, former Regina Capitals player Dick Irvin, Sr., pushes Richard just enough to get that best, and he also fuels The Rocket’s obsession to win.

As I mentioned, THE ROCKET isn’t just a sports movie. Personally, I found the film most effective when it was showing how Richard was treated by the other players in the league, not because he was on the Canadiens, but because he was French.

Yes, Maurice Richard was the first to score 50 goals in one season, doing so in 50 games, and the first to score 500 goals in a career.

And yes, he also played on eight Stanley Cup teams, was captain of 5 straight, and played in every National Hockey League All-Star Game from 1947 to 1959, and today he is an honoured member of The Hockey Hall Of Fame, but he was also so much more.

He was a husband, a father, and a proud French-Canadian.

His life and his accomplishments are inspirational and the film about him starring Roy Dupuis as Maurice Richard - is superb!

I can’t wait to watch it again, even if he is a member of the Montreal Canadiens.

Go Leafs, go!!!

Our next film this week isn’t as good as THE ROCKET, and I’m not sure I would even use the word good to describe it.

As a film, it kept me intrigued the whole time, and at one time I even wanted to fast-forward to the end just to see what was going to happen, but the characters in the movie are so disturbing that I could never say it is a good film.

The movie in question is called HARD CANDY.

It is about a 14-year-old girl who meets a 32 year-old man on the internet…and it turns out that she is the predator.

After spending time chatting online the girl agrees to meet the man at a local coffee shop, and that results in a trip to his home.

However, Jeff soon learns that Hayley isn't as innocent as she appears and I can’t say very much else without giving away some of the film’s many plot twists..., or disgusting you.

Now that is a word I would use to describe HARD CANDY: disgusting. Parts of the film actually disgusted me, but not for the reasons you might think.

At times during the movie both the girl and the man are at fault, and deserve punishment.

HARD CANDY is a film that challenges you to watch, and for that reason it succeeds as a film, regardless of the subject matter.

However, eventually that subject matter must come up, and it is for that reason that I am reluctant to recommend the film.

Now, if you enjoy seeing a film that you will want to discuss afterward, then you should definitely see HARD CANDY. Otherwise, look for something else.

I hear THE ROCKET is really good.

And THE ROCKET is now available on DVD along with HARD CANDY.

Coming up on the next Couch Potato Report

In Douglas Copeland’s SOUVENIR OF CANADA he tries to find out what makes Canadians, Canadians.

The legendary children’s character CURIOUS GEORGE finally gets his own movie!

And BATTLESTAR GALLACTICA – SEASON 2.5 will finally debut on DVD!!

I'm Dan Reynish. I'll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.

For now, that's this week's COUCH POTATO REPORT.

Enjoy the movies and I'll see you back here next time on The Couch!

Sloan's bassist looks for feedback

TORONTO (CP) - Sloan bassist Chris Murphy won't be upset if some fans don't like the band's new album, as long as they're honest about it.

"Never Hear The End Of It," the Halifax foursome's first studio album since 2003, includes a whopping 30 songs, ranging in length from just over 50 seconds to more than five minutes.

While Murphy says some listeners may have a hard time getting through the entire album, which clocks in at more than 76 minutes, he's just hoping it generates some passionate feedback once it hits shelves Sept. 19.

"I don't mind if this record is polarizing," he said during a recent phone interview from his Toronto home. "I'd rather get reaction - whether positive or negative - that's more extreme.

"There are going to be a lot of people who can't get through the whole thing," he said. "It's dense."

Murphy says the response to the band's music has often been somewhere in the middle because "we're nice enough guys and everybody wants us to do well."

"I want people to say (about the new album) 'This is totally what I love' or 'What the hell do they think they're doing, those obnoxious assholes?"' he said. "I'd rather just generate talk."

The album has a bit of everything, including upbeat pop, slower ballads and even a punk-influenced song. The first single, "Who Taught You To Live Like That?," has a '70s rock feel to it. The band's trademark harmonies are also prevalent on the disc.

"We tried to make it so that it was varied enough so that it didn't get boring to listen to so that one would want to listen to it the whole way through," said Murphy.

All 30 songs are squeezed on one CD but the vinyl version had to be split into a dual-disc collection.

"Never Hear The End Of It," recorded on the band's label Murderecords, is Sloan's eighth studio album and first new material since 2003's 12-song disc "Action Pact." Murphy said he was anxious to do something different this time.

"The last record we made, for what it's worth, was quite succinct and short and very straight-ahead rock 'n roll," he said. "I just wanted to be as eclectic as we wanted to be on this record and not talk about what kind of songs were supposed to have - just sort of like whatever happens, happens.

Murphy said he liked "Action Pact," but that it lacked something.

"It's just not very eclectic, it's just pretty straight-ahead," he said. "And that wouldn't have bothered me except for that that's been our last record for three years or more."

Murphy and bandmates Jay Ferguson, Andrew Scott and Patrick Pentland stuck to their traditional routine, each writing their own songs for the new album. Murphy alone contributed more than 10 tunes.

"I have a whole solo album hidden in this record," said Murphy.

The album could almost be considered a compilation, a criticism that has been directed toward the band in the past. But Murphy doesn't find that description offensive.

"It never bothers me," he said. "For our last record, we tried to beat the compilation rap and make a cohesive-sounding record but to me it just ends up sounding very uni-dimensional."

After some 15 years together, Murphy admits the band doesn't always get along. Still, he's proud of the fact Sloan has stayed intact.

"I think it's cool that we're still the same four people that we were in 1991," he said. "I'm telling you, that's really rare. It's very hard to keep everybody interested and to keep everybody on the same page. There are not a lot of bands that have been going for that long with the same four people."

Sloan is scheduled to play with the Rolling Stones on Sept. 23 in front of a hometown crowd at the Halifax Commons. It's not the first time they've played with the legendary band after doing a couple Stones shows in Boston earlier this year.

"It's pretty cool," said Murphy. "It will be in Halifax and it's right when our record comes out."

So does Murphy see himself still rocking when he's in his 60s like Mick Jagger?

"You tell me who is ahead of me in the line for rock iconship in Canada," he joked. "You tell me."

New Releases, Sept. 19: Fergie, Elton John, Clay Aiken, Diana Krall

Elton John "The Captain and the Kid"

After a 31-year wait, the pop-rock legend finally delivers the follow-up to 1975's "Captain Fantastic and the Dirt Brown Cowboy," which is widely considered to be one of John's finest albums. Of course, he hasn't exactly been killing time during the break; over the years, John has become a major force on Broadway and in film.

The first single from the album is titled "The Bridge." The piano-rocker is supporting "The Captain and the Kid" with a major arena tour, which is currently set to conclude with an Oct. 7 date in Atlantic City. After that, it's back to Las Vegas for his ongoing gig at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace.

* * *
Clay Aiken "A Thousand Different Ways"

The "American Idol" runner-up is back with a new concept album, a cover collection of tunes from the '70s, '80s and '90s. Aiken delivers his versions of such well-known former chart-toppers as "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word," "Here You Come Again," "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)" and "I Want to Know What Love Is." The set also includes four new songs.

"A Thousand Different Ways" follows Aiken's multi-platinum debut, 2003's "Measure of a Man," and the holiday album "Merry Christmas With Love," which reportedly was the best-selling holiday disc of the 2004 season.

Aiken recently made news after the White House announced that the pop singer was in line to be named to the President's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities.

* * *
Diana Krall "From this Moment On"

The popular jazz vocalist/pianist, who is arguably the genre's biggest contemporary name, returns with an 11-song collection of mostly jazz standards. The set includes such fine compositions as "Come Dance With Me," "How Insensitive" and "Willow Weep for Me." The music was arranged by John Clayton, which means this album should sound great.

According to published reports, the jazz singer and her husband, rock veteran Elvis Costello, are expecting twins in December.

* * *
Kenny Chesney "Live: Those Songs Again"

Chesney, one of the biggest draws in the concert industry, delivers a new live disc that features such fan favorites as "How Forever Feels," "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" and "Beer in Mexico." The set also includes a duet of "When the Sun Goes Down" that features Uncle Kracker (who also appeared on the studio version).

* * *
Fergie "The Dutchess"

The Black Eyed Peas singer puts out her debut CD, which already boasts one certified hit in "London Bridge." In the most recent Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, "London Bridge" was at No. 2, just behind Justin Timberlake's blockbuster "SexyBack."

* * *
More new releases:
Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, "Thug Stories" (Koch)
Bonnie Prince Billy, "The Letting Go" (Drag City)
Guy Clark, "Workbench Songs" (Dualtone)
DJ Shadow, "Outsider" (Universal)
Lupe Fiasco, "Food & Liquor" (Atlantic)
Indigo Girls, "Despite Our Differences" (Hollywood)
Kasabian, "Empire" (RCA)
Jonny Lang, "Turn Around" (A&M)
Jesse McCartney, "Right Where You Want Me" (Hollywood)
Mushroomhead, "Savior Sorrow" (Megaforce)
Aaron Neville, "Bring It on Home... the Soul Classics" (Burgundy)
New Found Glory, "Coming Home" (Geffen)
Dilana Smith, "Wonderfool" (Red Bullet)
Chris Smither, "Leave the Light On" (Signature)
Ryan Star, "Songs From the Eye of an Elephant" (Koch)

DVD places the loot in 'Dead Man's Chest'

The third chapter of the Pirates of the Caribbean saga, At World's End, is eight months away from theaters.

Industry observers expect the DVD of the year's biggest movie to easily be the year's top seller, beating another Disney title, The Chronicles of Narnia, which was released before Easter and sold more than 11 million DVDs in the USA alone.

"It's definitely a repeatable movie that people will want to own," says industry analyst Tom Adams of Adams Media Research. He predicts sales of 12 million to 13 million for Dead Man's Chest.

The sequels only fuel renewed interest in the movies that came before. During Dead Man's summer theatrical run, the DVD of the original Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl shot back into the top five on the national DVD sales chart nearly three years after it was released.

"That's likely to happen again with the DVD release of the second one," Adams says.

The Dead Man's Chest DVD will come out in both a single-disc edition ($30) and a two-disc collector's edition ($35).

Both DVDs have bloopers and commentary from writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, who also are writing the upcoming movie.

The collector's edition also comes with 10 featurettes, including a profile on Depp, an inside look at the movie's premiere on Disneyland's Main Street, a photo diary from producer Jerry Bruckheimer, a feature on how Disneyland's popular Pirates of the Caribbean attraction became the basis for a movie and an extensive making-of documentary.

For the DVD, Bruckheimer worked to be sure the special features give audiences something fresh.

"We wanted to give people more than they saw in the theater, a little insight into the filmmaking process," he says.

For the making-of featurette, "a documentary filmmaker followed us around during the prep work, and you'll see things that went wrong, as well as the joy of the first day of filming, which is really nice."

Bruckheimer says work on the third installment in the franchise is progressing nicely.

"We shot a lot of Chow Yun-Fat's stuff already, and we should finish the principal actors by the beginning of November, so we are quite a ways into it."

The third film is expected to open May 25, on Memorial Day weekend.

And by Christmas 2007, expect a DVD release and a boxed set of all three films.

Johansson happy with her curvy figure

NEW YORK - Scarlett Johansson struts her stuff in cleavage-baring dresses on the red carpet, but in real life, she'd rather remain a mystery.

"I can't stand those articles where people spill their life story," Johansson says in the October issue of InStyle magazine, on newsstands Friday. "After a while I feel like I know more about them than their best friend does — and that's weird. It's better when you don't know everything."

The 21-year-old actress, whose screen credits include "Lost in Translation" and "Match Point," plays a former prostitute in "The Black Dahlia," opposite Hilary Swank and Josh Hartnett.

Johansson says: "Do I ever get nervous about this, right now, being the pinnacle of my career? Yeah, I do. At the end of (filming) every movie I think, `Wow — this is the last one! Nice working with you.'"

She's more confident about her hourglass figure. "I'm curvy — I'm never going to be 5'11' and 120 pounds. But I feel lucky to have what I've got."

And, given the chance, she'd like to trade lives with President Bush. "Whose life would I like to step into for the day? The president's. I could probably get some things done in the Oval Office."

'Studio 60': Work never looked so fun

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - NBC, Monday, 10 ET/PT
* * * * (out of four)

By Robert Bianco, USA TODAY

Sometimes, where you're going is less important than who's taking you there.
So it doesn't matter if you have only limited interest in what goes on behind the scenes at a TV show. What matters with Studio 60 is that it stars Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford and Amanda Peet; it's directed by Thomas Schlamme; and it's written by Aaron Sorkin. And they're all at the top of their games.

Teeming with rich characters and terrific actors, brimming with wit, drama and unexpected urgency, Studio 60 brings its workplace to full, immensely entertaining life. But then, what else would you expect from the team that gave us Sports Night and The West Wing?

Their latest series is set at an SNL-type sketch show (though you may well feel you're actually backstage at Wing). Already in decline, the fictional Studio 60 is pushed over the edge by the live Network-like rant of the show's founder (Judd Hirsch).

In rushes the new president of "NBS" entertainment, Jordan McDeere (Peet), who was brought in by network head Jack Rudolph (Steven Weber) to right the ratings ship. Her idea: Bring back the brilliant writer/director team Jack forced out, Matt Albie (Perry) and Danny Tripp (Whitford).

Almost instantly, the news that Matt and Danny might return leaks to the show's director (Timothy Busfield) and its three stars: Simon (D.L. Hughley), Tommy (Nathan Corddry) and Matt's ex-girlfriend Harriet (Sarah Paulson). Their reactions are mixed, for reasons that become clearer next Monday.

As is usual with Sorkin, information about these characters and their relationships is parceled out in fits and starts so that we discover things piecemeal, as we might in real life. And, as usual, the lines sparkle even when the writer indulges his fondness for big set speeches.

There are times when Studio 60 is a little too self-important and self-referential. (It's impossible not to read Sorkin into Perry's character.) But while it is interested in the issues that are faced and stirred up by TV, it is definitely not a show about show business. This is a beautifully acted drama about the conflicts, pressures and joys that arise when people come together at work. In short, it's about life.

Who can't identify with that?

"Flyboys" makers defy Hollywood

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - It is a box office gamble befitting the daring aviators who star in the movie "Flyboys," which opens on Friday.

A group of filmmakers and investors including producer Dean Devlin and ace pilot David Ellison, son of Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison, spent more than $60 million of their own money to make and market a film no major studio would touch.

Not even Mel Gibson with his smash hit "The Passion of the Christ" spent $60 million. "Passion" cost $25 million, and independent films typically cost less than $5 million. Hollywood studios did not want to back "Flyboys" because they worried it wouldn't draw a big enough audience to make money.

But Devlin, whose hits include big budget "Independence Day," was passionate about "Flyboys" a tale of fighter pilots in World War I who risked their lives flying in rickety biplanes.

Devlin contends passion is lacking in studio moviemaking and says that if Hollywood wants to excite audiences, it must break away from box office-safe sequels, prequels, formulaic comedies and the same old dramas.

RISKY BUSINESS

Hollywood's history is filled with independent producers who took big financial risks and came out on top.

Their stories go back to the origins of movies and include billionaire Howard Hughes' 1930 World War I flying film "Hell's Angels," which at the time cost around $3 million to make and was the most expensive movie ever made.

Like "Hell's Angels," "Flyboys" tells of the first young men to face aerial dogfights. Their biplanes were made of wood and wire. Guns often jammed; engines frequently caught fire. The pilots' life expectancy was a mere six weeks.

"Flyboys" follows members of the Lafayette Escadrille who were U.S. pilots that flew for the French before the United States entered the war. Their tale is one of high-risk adventure in the air and human frailty on the ground.

"This was a story I never heard before, and it was in a unique story in a genre I wanted to see revived," Devlin said. He added that the last time a World War I flying movie was made by Hollywood was 1966's "The Blue Max" from 20th Century Fox.

In modern times, the cost of reproducing biplanes was too high for studio executives who questioned whether young men -- the key audience for action movies -- would care about old biplanes in place of their usual "Star Wars" fare.

MODERN-DAY FLYING ACE

New computer graphic imagery reduced the cost of making "Flyboys" because only a few real biplanes had to be made. The rest were digital creations.

Still, the movie's financing came together and fell apart "maybe 16 times" over several years, Devlin said, owing to the fact that few financiers had the same passion as Devlin.

Enter aspiring filmmaker David Ellison, 23, whom Devlin met through his lawyer. Ellison's father is No. 5 on the list of the richest men in the United States with a net worth estimated at $17 billion by Forbes magazine.

Observers might conclude Larry Ellison bought the movie role for his son, but David Ellison said that is wrong. The junior Ellison has distinguished himself as a top aerobatic pilot and he was passionate about the movie.

"I got involved with this on my own. I was like, dad, I'm doing this by myself," Ellison said. And on his role as one of the "flyboys," Ellison insisted he never wanted to take it.

Devlin said "Flyboys" director Tony Bill played a game of brinkmanship and argued the only way he would allow Ellison to invest was if the young pilot took a part in the movie.

Bill knew Ellison was a star among a core audience of aviators, and the film's backers have traveled to air shows to promote what they consider to be a family film that lacks the foul language, sex and nudity of many Hollywood studio flicks.

"Flyboys" debuts alongside major studio films "All the Kings Men," a remake of a 1949 hit and "Jackass 2," a sequel to a 2002 movie about people doing stupid stunts.

Whether a World War I tale can beat them in the weekly box office battle remains to be seen. But two things are certain, the story is fresh and the filmmakers fearless.

"If you want a safe investment, get a Treasury bill," said Devlin.

Producer Rock on a post-Metallica roll

TORONTO (Billboard) - Bob Rock says he feels "20 years younger" after his split with Metallica, whose albums he had produced since 1991.

The Canadian producer parted company with the metal titan earlier this year and is now devoting his energies to other artists and a return to his own recording career.

According to the 52-year-old Rock, "My life is now about my wife and kids, and recording other bands."

Those "other bands" are a varied bunch. He's in Vancouver producing Canadian crooner Michael Buble. This fall, he will reunite with Lava/Atlantic pop/punk act Simple Plan. (He produced the band's hit 2004 album, "Still Not Getting Any.") Rock also is heading to the studio with the Offspring for the act's eighth studio album.

Rock first teamed with Metallica for its self-titled 1991 album (aka "The Black Album"). The Elektra set debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and stayed on the chart for 281 weeks. Rock helmed Metallica's subsequent albums, through 2003's "St. Anger."

A behind-the-scenes look at that tumultuous project was featured in the following year's unflinching documentary "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster." A petition that some 1,500 fans signed subsequently was posted online calling for Metallica to dump Rock, claiming he had too much influence on the band's sound.

"The criticism was hurtful for my kids, who read it and don't understand the circumstances," Rock says. "Sometimes, even with a great coach, a team keeps losing. You have to get new blood in there."

But Metallica co-manager Peter Mensch argues that Rock "nursed Metallica out of almost complete collapse on that record. Bob is one of the five best producers on the planet. But it was time to shake things up."

Rick Rubin is producing the next Metallica album.

ROCK ROOTS

Rock made his international reputation in the '80s while he was an engineer at Vancouver's Little Mountain Sound, working with producer Bruce Fairbairn on multiplatinum albums for Loverboy, Bon Jovi and Aerosmith.

In 1988 he switched to producing with the self-titled debut Polydor album from Kingdom Come, followed quickly by productions for Bon Jovi, Motley Crue and the Cult.

Since "St. Anger," Rock increasingly has turned to working with fellow Canadians at his home base, Plantation Studios in Maui, producing Bryan Adams, Our Lady Peace and Simple Plan in recent years.

He also produced an act that many consider Canada's most beloved rock band, the Tragically Hip. The resulting album, "World Container," is due October 17 via Universal Music Canada, with a U.S. release anticipated for 2007. Rock says working with the Hip was a no-brainer: "I've always wanted to make a great Canadian album."

Rock is also planning to record an album with his own band, the Payolas. Fronted by singer Paul Hyde, the pioneering punk band split in 1986 after four albums for A&M Records of Canada and six Juno Awards, Canada's top music honors.

Rock is unfazed by talk of a Payolas tour. "I'd get to go on a tour bus with my family," he says. "That sounds like fun."

Quebec teen Eva Avila crowned new Canadian Idol

TORONTO — Quebec's soul diva Eva Avila has been crowned the new Canadian Idol.

The 19-year-old edged her younger competitor Craig Sharpe by just over 131,000 votes in a tight race that CTV officials say was determined by fans in western Canada. Sharpe, from Newfoundland and Labrador, is just 16.

Avila's win drew cheers from hundreds of friends and family that watched the show from a massive party at city hall in Gatineau, Que.

Avila thanked those fans in an emotional address that followed performances by chart-topper Nelly Furtado, last year's winner Melissa O'Neil, and the eight other contestants in this year's final 10.

“I'm just one tiny person on this planet but thanks to you guys, I'm feeling like I'm sitting on top of the world,” Avila said.

“I could not be happier.”

She closed the show with a rendition of the next Canadian Idol single, Meant to Fly, penned by singer-songwriters Chantal Kreviazuk and Raine Maida.

Throughout the series, Avila, an R&B-tinged singer who considered Furtado her idol, earned praise from the judges for her pose and mature vocals.

But it was not an easy win.

Avila, who snags a record deal with Sony BMG and blanket publicity, won by a margin of just three per cent from the nearly four million votes cast.

Canadian Idol officials said she and Sharpe were at a virtual tie when voting closed at 11 p.m. EDT following their last performance Monday.

Sharpe, the youngest top-10 competitor, often appeared awkward on stage but won consistent praise from the judges for his powerful voice.

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams and MPs Loyola Hearn and Fabian Manning were among the fans to cheer him on in the Toronto studio.

On Sunday, Canadian Idol officials announced that '80s sensation Cyndi Lauper has agreed to produce a track on Avila's CD, due this fall, while country star Martina McBride has invited Avila to join her on the Canadian leg of her tour next summer.

Lauper coached and performed on the show in July while McBride mentored the contestants in August.

The final episode launched with a medley of pop hits sung by previous competitors, including Avila's new beau, 18-year-old Chad Doucette of East Chezzetcook, N.S.

Celebrities in the audience included actress Amanda Bynes and stars of Degrassi: the Next Generation, Lauren Collins and Adamp Ruggiero.

R.E.M. inducted into Music Hall of Fame

ATLANTA - The four original members of R.E.M. gave a rare performance Saturday night as the group was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.

The group, which formed in Athens, Ga., in 1980, has won three Grammys and sold more than 70 million records. It has performed as a quartet only a handful of times since 1997, when drummer Bill Berry left the group after suffering a brain aneurysm onstage in 1995.

"This is going to be loud," front man Michael Stipe said as the group launched into "Begin the Begin" from their 1986 album "Life's Rich Pageant."

Saturday's reunion performance was by far the largest and the first that was publicized in advance. Many of the roughly 1,500 people at the Georgia hall's black-tie induction ceremony clearly were there to see the group.

"It's been a sellout and the buzz has been going on for many weeks now," said Lisa Love, director of the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. "R.E.M. is one of the most influential bands in the world"

The three remaining members — Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills — have continued to tour and record without naming an official drummer.

Also inducted Saturday were Allman Brothers founder Gregg Allman, writer-producers Dallas Austin and Jermaine Dupri, and the late Felice Bryant. Bryant, along with husband Boudleaux Bryant, wrote country and rock standards including "Rocky Top," "Wake Up Little Susie" and "Love Hurts."

Other members of the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, located about an hour south of Atlanta in Macon, Ga., include Ray Charles, Little Richard, Travis Tritt, Trisha Yearwood and the Indigo Girls.

"Gridiron Gang" (somehow) scores at the box office

LOS ANGELES - It was another down weekend at the box office, although moviegoers helped Sony Pictures and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson score with the football flick "Gridiron Gang."

The drama about a football team at a Los Angeles juvenile detention center took in an estimated $15 million in ticket sales to claim the top spot for the weekend. The debut gave distributor Sony its 10th top opener this year, setting an all-time industry record.

Overall, box office revenues for the top 12 films dipped 12.3 percent from the same weekend last year. That makes for two down weekends in a row, cutting into the single-digit revenue gains the studios has enjoyed so far this year.

Studio revenues are still up 6.2 percent over last year and attendance is also up 3 percent, according to box office tracker Exhibitor Relations Inc.

Despite high expectations from director Brian De Palma and a cast including Josh Hartnett and Scarlett Johansson, the gruesome murder mystery "The Black Dahlia" opened in the second spot with $10.4 million.

The film, from Universal Pictures, fared better than last week's debut of "Hollywoodland," which sank from the number two spot to ninth place this week. Both films deal with real-life Los Angeles mysteries.

Similarly, there are two football-themed films in theaters, including "Invincible," which brought in $3.9 million over the weekend for distributor Disney.

"With two L.A. noir films and two football movies, audiences may be feeling like they've seen some of this before and may not be coming out in bigger numbers," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations.

The animated film "Everyone's Hero" took in $6.2 million. The 20th Century Fox movie was originally directed by the late Christopher Reeve, and his wife Dana served as producer of the film until her death in March.

The other major film opening was Paramount's "The Last Kiss," which took in $4.7 million for fourth place. The movie stars Zach Braff of "Scrubs" and Rachel Bilson of "The O.C."

But the weekend belonged to "The Rock," who scored his fifth No. 1 opening in his career, helping to further his reputation as an action movie star.

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

1. "Gridiron Gang," $15 million.
2. "The Black Dahlia," $10.4 million.
3. "Everyone's Hero," $6.2 million.
4. "The Last Kiss," $4.7 million.
5. "The Covenant," $4.7 million.
6. "Invincible," $3.9 million.
7. "The Illusionist," $3.8 million.
8. "Little Miss Sunshine," $3.4 million
9. "Hollywoodland," $2.7 million.
10. "Crank," $2.7 million.

What'll be first new fall show to fall?

NEW YORK - With a new television season starting Monday, this is the time of year network executives go to sleep with visions of big hits in their heads — and get a reality check when they wake before dawn to check the ratings on their Blackberrys.

A Web site connected to the Bravo network is playing to their nightmares this year.

The site, Brilliantbutcancelled.com, is running a sweepstakes for fans to predict which of the 24 new series being introduced by the broadcast networks this fall will be the first canceled.

The "Fall Season Death Watch 2006" game actually regenerates each week for nine weeks. Participants who guess the first show axed each week are entered into a sweepstakes to win a video iPod; everyone competes for the iPod on weeks when no series bite the dust.

"It's all in good fun," said Jason Klarman, Bravo executive. He may not think so if an NBC show is first — Bravo is a corporate cousin, also owned by the General Electric Co. — and he has to deal with some cold stares in the hallway.

The Web site is an outgrowth of the Bravo program, "Brilliant But Cancelled," which brings back to life good or groundbreaking television shows that didn't last long. It's a true niche audience, since a show like "EZ Streets" would have survived if more than a handful of people liked it, but passionate niches are what make Web sites successful.

As people place their bets in the game, the odds of a show being the first to go are adjusted accordingly.

By the end of last week, the show judged most likely to die is "Happy Hour," a Fox comedy about a suddenly single man and his party-hearty friend in Chicago. It has already been on the air a few times, so fans may be speaking from experience in giving the show 3-to-1 odds.

Second in players' estimation is ABC's "Men in Trees," starring Anne Heche as a single woman set adrift in Alaska. In setting the 4-to-1 odds, players probably noticed that a "sneak peek" of the show aired last week following "Dancing With the Stars" and led more than a third of the audience to change the channel.

That's Aaron Barnhart's choice of the first to go. Barnhart, TV critic for the Kansas City Star, said it's primarily because "Men in Trees" is scheduled for Fridays, and "Friday is the night where shows go to die," he said.

"It's no longer possible to draw a large audience to women-oriented shows on Friday nights," Barnhart said.

And after dumping a Heather Graham comedy last winter after it aired only once, ABC has proven it will move quickly, even if a star is involved.

Two other experts predicted CBS' Wednesday night drama "Jericho," about a Kansas town in the aftermath of a nuclear strike, would be first shelved.

"It is so dark, so pessimistic," said Bob Laurence, critic for the San Diego Union-Tribune. "I don't see a reason to come back next week."

"Jericho" seems to use "Lost" as a role model as a serial, said Sharianne Brill, TV analyst for the Madison Avenue firm Carat USA. But "Lost" has good-looking actors in skimpy clothes on a tropical island. "Jericho" is in Kansas, she said.

"Wednesday at 8 is almost the Bermuda Triangle for (CBS)," she said. "It never works. Now the Bermuda Triangle has a show about a nuclear event. I think it's something that's better suited for a miniseries than an ongoing series."

But CBS should be happy that, at 292-to-one odds, it has two shows deemed least likely to go: "Shark," which stars James Woods as a big-name defense attorney turned prosecutor; and "Smith," with Ray Liotta leading a group of criminals. "Kidnapped" on NBC and "The Nine" on ABC share the same long odds.

NBC's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" has similar long odds at 277-to-one, a reflection that despite so-so reviews, fans know the network is likely to give this star-packed series from Aaron Sorkin ("West Wing") every chance to succeed.

Bravo's Klarman said he's been impressed by the savvy shown by game players. How many are television executives playing under the cover of anonymity he'll never know.

"Why are people interested in seeing the box office returns on Monday morning?" he said. "Not everybody is in the movie industry. But people are interested in the horse race."

Get Smart - Complete Series up for ordering - Tons of Details Inside

There has been lots of talk about how Time-Life will release Get Smart on DVD.

People were speculating about the price, the packaging, and how long they'd have to wait between releases of each season. Well, Time-Life has done something that should make pretty much everyone happy... they're releasing all 5 seasons in one big box, then releasing the seasons individually later on.

You don't have to worry about a big collectors set being released with more material months after you buy the fifth season because they're doing it up front. You can buy the complete series right now for $199.96, or wait awhile and get individual seasons for $40 (though we've not sure why you would want to do that).

I've double-checked with Time-Life to make sure these are uncut episodes, and the episode times they sent me are around 25 mins (some higher, some slightly lower). This is a major release for them, and they've given the series the attention it deserves by hiring Paul Brownstein to produce extras for the set.

You'll know Paul from his work on other sets like The Dick Van Dyke Show, Wild, Wild, West, Gunsmoke and The Twilight Zone.

Remember, this set will only be available from Time-Life for the next year; it will not be available in stores, or from other online retailers. Head on over to the Time-Life site and place your order now. The set will begin shipping on November 13

TIME-LIFE AND HBO® VIDEO ANNOUNCE THE LONG-AWAITED RELEASE OF GET SMART ON DVD

GET SMART: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION

November 13th Marks The Debut Of The Award-Winning TV Series On ANY Home Video Format!

SERIES EXECUTIVE PRODUCER LEONARD STERN CALLS THE
DIGITAL RESTORATION OF ALL 138 EPISODES "INCREDIBLE"

FAIRFAX, VA - Sept. 15, 2006 - Would you believe... one of the greatest television sitcoms of all time will finally arrive on DVD, as Time-Life and HBO Video debut Get Smart: The Complete Collection this fall. The seven-time EMMY® Award-winning comedy series, starring Don Adams as title character Maxwell Smart, originally aired on NBC from 1965 to 1970, and has never before been available on home video. All five seasons arrive November 13th featuring nearly 10 hours of stunning bonus material such as a new, in-depth interview with co-star Barbara Feldon (Agent 99), original featurettes, new episode introductions, audio commentaries with cast and series co-creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, never-before-seen bloopers, and much, much more.

Get Smart: The Complete Collection DVD set will be available exclusively from Time-Life via the Time-Life website (www.getsmartondvd.com) for the first year. This super-sized, specially packaged collection contains every original, unedited episode from all five seasons of Get Smart - a total of 138 episodes on 25 DVDs! Get Smart: The Complete First Season will soon be available as a five-disc set with over two hours of bonus material, also through the Time-Life website and additionally through direct-response television commercials, with Seasons 2-5 to follow. The series is due to be released at retail by HBO Video, but not until Fall 2007. HBO Video is distributed by Warner Home Video.

Time-Life, working in conjunction with HBO Video, spent nearly a year restoring and digitally re-mastering each individual full-length episode of the celebrated series. Commenting on the new look of the show, Get Smart executive producer Leonard Stern remarked, "This incredible restoration means that finally Get Smart can be seen the way it was meant to be seen."

Award-winning DVD executive producer Paul Brownstein (The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Twilight Zone, The Odd Couple) oversaw the Get Smart DVD production. Brownstein's extensive research and talent outreach have resulted in an impressive amount of nearly 10 hours of bonus features.

Series co-creators Brooks and Henry, producer Stern, actors Feldon, Bernie Kopell (KAOS kingpin Siegfried), Bill Dana (Agent Quigley), and guest stars Don Rickles and James Caan recently recorded audio commentaries for the collection. Five original featurettes boast exclusive on-camera interviews, Get Smart memorabilia and show highlights. Bonus features also include clips from the 2003 Museum of Television & Radio's Get Smart Reunion seminar, representing the last time key Get Smart alum Adams, Feldon, Kopell, Stern and producer/director Jay Sandrich appeared together on the same stage. Never-before-seen bloopers, rare network promotional pieces, commercials, EMMY award acceptance speeches, and classic TV appearances by Adams, both in and out of character are found within the collection. Finally, the Get Smart DVD collection, which is aptly dedicated to the memory of Adams, includes the hour-long roast taped at the Playboy Mansion on the occasion of Adams' 75th birthday, as well as an hour of footage from the touching memorial service held after the beloved star's death in 2005.

GET SMART: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION (25-DVD Set)
Release Date: November 13, 2006
Pre-Order Begins: September 15, 2006
List Price: $199.96
Collection includes:

25 DVDs in special collectors packaging
5 eight-page booklets with liner notes written by actor Dave Ketchum (Agent 13) and Alan Spencer, creator of the TV comedy series "Sledge Hammer!" and contributor to the feature film "Get Smart Again"
All 138 Original unedited episodes (1965-70) with new introductions by Barbara Feldon
9 Audio commentaries with Barbara Feldon, Mel Brooks, James Caan, Don Rickles, Buck Henry, Leonard Stern, Bernie Kopell, and Bill Dana
5 On-camera interviews with Barbara Feldon, Buck Henry, Bruce Bilson, Bernie Kopell, and Leonard Stern
5 Featurettes: "The Secret History of Get Smart," "Barbara Feldon: Real Model to Role Model," "Spooks, Spies, Gadgets and Gizmos," "Code Words and Catch Phrases," and "The Fans of Get Smart" Never-Before-Seen Bloopers!
2003 Museum of Television & Radio Get Smart Reunion seminar featuring Don Adams, Barbara Feldon, Bernie Kopell, Leonard Stern and Bruce Bilson
Don Adams' 75th Birthday Roast at the Playboy Mansion
Footage from Don Adams' 2005 memorial service with tributes from Barbara Feldon, Don Rickles and many others
5 Fun interactive features: CONTROL Entrance Exam, Max's Apartment, The Chief's Office, Agent 99's Purse, Max's Sunbeam Tiger
Footage from all 7 EMMY® award wins and acceptance speeches
1964 "Top Brass" hair care TV commercial that won Barbara Feldon the Agent 99 role
1964 Clip from Don Adams' guest-starring appearance on "The Bill Dana Show" - the Maxwell Smart character is born!
Clips from Don Adams' three guest-starring appearances on "The Andy Williams Show"
Behind-the-Scenes footage, Get Smart promotional spots and much, much more!

Harry Potter an airport security threat

British writer J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, says she had to fight airport security in New York to be allowed to carry her manuscript of the final book of the series onto her flight home to England.

"A large part of it is handwritten and there was no copy of anything I had done while in the U.S.," Rowling wrote in her web diary.

The posting, which appeared on Wednesday, indicated that Rowling had been caught by heightened security measures put in place after Aug. 10 when British police foiled an alleged plot blow up planes headed for the United States.

Those measures meant people were unable to board planes with things such as laptops, liquids and even books.

Rowling managed to work some magic and convinced the security guards she and her manuscript were no threat.

"They let me take it on, thankfully, bound up in elastic bands," said the 40-year-old writer, who considered taking a ship back to England.

Rowling had been in New York for a charity book reading along with fellow writers Stephen King and John Irving — both of whom publicly pleaded with her not to kill off the young wizard at the heart of her books in the final instalment.

The author has said that two main characters will die but will not say who. She divulged in her web diary that she was pondering two possible titles for the last instalment of her wildly successful wizard-in-training series.

"I was quite happy with one of them until the other one struck me while I was taking a shower in New York," she wrote.

"They would both be appropriate, so I think I'll have to wait until I'm further into the book to decide which one works best."

Fans of the Harry Potter series, which has sold more than 300 million books worldwide, are eagerly waiting to find out what happens when young Harry Potter is expected to engage in a final battle with his evil nemesis, Lord Voldemort.

Filming has begun on the fifth instalment of the movie franchise, Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix.

Gervais: 'Extras' Done After Two Seasons

The second season of "Extras" premieres on British television Thursday, and it's looking like there won't be a third.

As he did with his previous series, "The Office," creator Ricky Gervais would like to end "Extras" after just two seasons. The idea, he says, is not to wear out his welcome in people's living rooms.

"At the moment, I don't think there will be another one. [Co-creator Stephen Merchant] and I have always had this thing where we only like to do two series," Gervais tells London's Sun newspaper. "It's like 'The Office' -- people are always asking why we didn't do any more, but we just wanted to leave people wanting more."

The second season of "Extras" -- which will feature cameos by Orlando Bloom, David Bowie and "Harry Potter" star Daniel Radcliffe, among others -- debuts Thursday on BBC2 in the U.K. (HBO, which airs the show in the United States, hasn't set an airdate for the new episodes yet). It will pick up where the first run ended, with Andy Millman (Gervais) selling a sitcom to the BBC.

Unlike Gervais' own experience, where he's been given full creative control over his shows, Andy's show quickly gets away from him. "Andy tries to put up a fight, but in the end he backs down as he craves fame so badly," Gervais says. "It really is a case of 'Be careful what you wish for.'"

Gervais, an unabashed fan of American TV drama, thinks he might like to try writing his own dramatic series next. "I've got so many ideas in my head," he says. "... I think I could appear in a drama. I know people may say I couldn't be taken seriously, but I think it just depends on how strong and well-written it is."

Who to launch channel on Sirius

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Legendary British rock band The Who is reaching out to a new generation of listeners.

In addition to this week launching its first world tour in more than 20 years to promote its first new album since 1982, The Who, which rose to fame with rebellious hits such as "My Generation," said it will be hosting its own channel on Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.

"The Who Channel," a commercial-free music channel, will launch on Sept 21. Sirius, a subscriber-based satellite radio provider, announced the new channel during a press event in New York attended by all current members of The Who.

The Who has only two of its original members -- singer Roger Daltrey and guitarist and songwriter Pete Townshend.

Two other original members, drummer Keith Moon and bassist John Entwistle, died in drug-related incidents.

The limited-run channel will feature five decades of the band's music, exclusive interviews with band members and nightly broadcasts of concerts on the band's current tour.

Sirius will also broadcast shows from The Who's archives, including some never before-heard shows and backstage conversations with the band, including some with the late Keith Moon and John Entwistle.

Townshend and Daltrey are now joined by bassist Pino Palladino, drummer Zak Starkey ( Ringo Starr's son), guitarist Simon Townshend and keyboardist John "Rabbit" Bundrick on the new album, as well as in their live performances.

The band kicked off their world tour in Philadelphia on Tuesday with a two-hour set that included a full complement of classic hits and a smattering of new material.

"Endless Wire," The Who's first studio album in 24 years, is due to be released by Universal Music on October 31.

...Jay-Z Officially Unretires

Don't call it a comeback--'cause he never really went away.

Jay-Z has made the rather superfluous announcement that he is returning to the music world he allegedly forsook three years ago, telling Entertainment Weekly he will release a new album, Kingdom Come, this fall.

The revelation negates his 2003 departure from the biz, when Hova announced The Black Album would be his last.

"It was the worst retirement, maybe, in history," he told magazine.

The 36-year-old rapper, born Shawn Carter, also defended the integrity of his retirement announcement, dismissing rampant speculation that the hiatus was never intended to be permanent and was a stunt to increase sales of his last album and create a demand for his return.

"I believed it, yeah," he said of his 2002 declaration. "I believed it for two years."

The rapper's golden years, of course, were slightly more prolific than the average retiree. While "away," Jay-Z performed several one-off gigs, staged an ill-conceived tour with R. Kelly and produced and wrote several hit tracks for the hip-hop set, including a couple on girlfriend Beyonce's new album, B'Day.

In his spare time, he also became co-owner of the New Jersey Nets and president and CEO of Island Def Jam Recordings.

Still, the "99 Problems" singer said the root of his decision to return to the limelight "wasn't like a defining moment."

"Something, when you love it, is always tugging at you and itching at you, and I was putting it off and putting it off," he told EW. "I started fumbling around to see if it felt good."

It must have.

For Kingdom Come, which, fans may be interested to know, the artist likens more to The Black Album than Blueprint, Jay-Z worked with a roster of talent.

He told EW he's teamed up with a slew of bona fide hitmakers, including Timbaland, Kanye West, Dr. Dre, and--wait for it--Mr. Gwyneth Paltrow himself, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin.

"We met a charity dinner and just really kept in touch," he said. "He sent me these beautiful chords for this song called 'Beach Chair.' I had Dre put some drums on it. It's really, really incredible."

Jay-Z has also announced plans to embark on a two-month international tour this fall, though not just in support of his album.

In between gigs in Africa, the rapper will go on a United Nations-backed trek to visit regions suffering shortages of clean drinking water. The excursion will be filmed for a Nov. 24 special on MTV, Diary of Jay-Z: Water for Life.

Jay-Z promises Kingdom Come will drop this fall, but hasn't announced an official release date.

Superman Returns in November

We just got word that Warner Home Video has scheduled Brian Singer’s Superman Returns for release on DVD in November in two separate versions.

After a long visit to the lost remains of the planet Krypton, the Man of Steel returns to earth to become the people’s savior once again and reclaim the love of Lois Lane.

The first DVD version will be a Standard Release featuring the movie in its widescreen presentation with 5.1 channel Dolby Digital audio in English and French. This version of the film will no contain any extras.

The second version will be a 2-disc Special Edition that contains the film as above, but also includes an additional disc with Deleted Scenes and the Full-length Documentary “Requiem For Krypton: The Making Of Superman Returns.”

Both DVDs will be in stores on November 28 and cost $28.98 and $34.98 respectively.

Canadian Rossi officially a Rock Star

Lukas Rossi became the latest Canadian to be named a rock star on Wednesday night.

The Toronto native was one of four contestants on Rock Star: Supernova vying to become the singer for a hard rock supergroup featuring drummer Tommy Lee (Motley Crue), guitarist Gilby Clarke (Guns N' Roses) and bassist Jason Newsted (Metallica).

Rossi is slated to front his more famous bandmates for the first time in a full show on Jan. 1 in Las Vegas.

The newly formed group is to record an album and embark on a 28-city North American tour.

Supernova may not stick as their name, however, as an existing California band is mounting a legal challenge.

Just hours before the show aired, a United States District Court judge issued a preliminary injunction barring the reality band from performing, recording or selling music under the Supernova name pending the outcome of the lawsuit.

In contention with Rossi were Iceland's Magni Asgeirsson, Australian Toby Rand and Dilana Robichaux, a South African living in Houston. Eleven other contestants were eliminated over a 13-week period prior to the final show.

In the end it came down to Robichaux and Rossi, with the winner a Canadian for the second time in as many seasons. J.D. Fortune of Oakville, Ont., won the contest last year to become lead singer of popular '80s band INXS.

"I wouldn't have come here if I wanted second or third place." Rossi told CBC News before the final.

It's a trip the 29-year-old former fry cook at Hooters almost didn't make, according to Barbara Sedun, an executive with EMI Music Publishing Canada.

"We heard about the Rock Star: Supernova auditions from a friend of ours in L.A. and we knew right away that Lukas was the right guy for it," she said.

"I called him up and he was not interested ... So we didn't send him to the first audition in Toronto," she said.

But Sedun was insistent and bought Rossi a plane ticket to Los Angeles.

"We called Lukas up and said, 'Lukas, you have to go.' There was no 'No.' "

Rossi had been working at part-time jobs and playing with his own band, Rise Electric. But those close to him knew he could do more, said bandmate Dominic Cifarelli.

"He's a rock star, period. He has the voice," said Cifarelli.

With racial split, 'Survivor' returns

NEW YORK - If viewers had been taking "Survivor" for granted, here was an idea guaranteed to catch their eye: organize the players by race.

For "Survivor: Cook Islands," the 20 castaways will initially be split into four tribes along ethnic lines (black, white, Asian-American and Hispanic). The 13th cycle of the CBS adventure challenge premieres Thursday at 8 p.m. EDT, arriving on the heels of a burst of attention — including outrage that creator Mark Burnett had played the race card with his players.

From the first announcement of the show's new concept in late August, pundits were fulminating.

A Wall Street Journal editorial accused the show of "playing up identity-politics in a crude and potentially rancorous way."

In the Hollywood Reporter, Ray Richmond blasted Burnett for "tapping a raw segregationist nerve and exploiting America's obsession with race for personal gain."

Meanwhile, several members of the New York City Council were denouncing the show for promoting divisiveness. "How could anybody be so desperate for ratings?" posed Councilman John Liu, who is Asian-American.

Then New York Times columnist Clyde Haberman observed that these city officials included members of the Black, Latino and Asian Caucus.

"In other words," wrote Haberman, "leading the condemnation of CBS for creating teams defined by race and ethnicity was a team that created itself using race and ethnicity as the definition."

When asked by The Associated Press his reaction to all the flack, Burnett replied, "I'm not shocked. I just think truly any rational person would wait to see what happens."

The harshest critics, he said, "could look pretty stupid if it becomes the most positive thing for removing stereotypes. And I hope that the people who've made the loudest comments will, in the adverse, also be the loudest congratulators if they're wrong."

Detractors and other interested parties have to wait until Thursday to see if the show deserved all the fuss: Though shooting on the Cook Islands in the South Pacific has wrapped, CBS kept the episodes under wraps from the press. No point in killing the pre-launch buzz.

Last week, the show's host, Jeff Probst, joined Burnett in asking viewers to withhold judgment until they've taken a peek.

The new series is featuring "the most ethnic-diverse cast in the history of TV, as far as I know," Probst said during a teleconference with reporters — and, he added, the freshest, least "Survivor"-savvy group of players since the pioneering castaways of season one.

As they compete for the $1 million prize, they won't be modeling the same old game plans that have worked before, he said. "We don't have people coming in saying, `I'm gonna be just like Colby.'"

Last season, the show divided contestants into groups of older men, younger men, older women and younger women. This season's organizing principal, Probst said, was conceived "in terms of ethnic pride, not discrimination.

"But then you have to vote somebody out from your own group, and that complicates things," he went on. "How are you going to do it? Because now it's going to come down to who's contributing and who isn't."

Later, when a number of players have been voted off, the thinned-out ranks will be consolidated and integrated. Then, Probst explained, the issue becomes whether to stay loyal to members of your own ethnic group, "because you've already made bonds based simply on skin color.

"Or, more likely, will you look to make alliances with people who ... will help you to the end, so you can win?"

Extras returns to sour actor's dream

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant are back with a second series of the BBC Two comedy Extras.

While Gervais and Merchant claim to have enjoyed total creative freedom making hit sitcoms The Office and Extras, they afford nothing like the same luxury to Gervais's character Andy Millman in the second series of Extras.

The former "background artiste" should be overjoyed to be filming his own sitcom, but is horrified that producers' interference has turned it into a comedy that Hi-De-Hi!'s Paul Shane rejects for being too broad.

Forced to wear "funny" glasses and curly wig for his character, Andy is dismayed to observe the first episode's recording being enjoyed by audience members in It's Chico Time! T-shirts.

"We wanted it to be like a real sitcom that wasn't our taste," explains Gervais.

"We wanted it to be a good 'bad sitcom'. We worked so hard on it."

Gervais and Merchant approached the sitcom-within-a-sitcom with the same thoroughness as the film and TV scenes in Extras.

They worked out back stories and discussed who would be making them - a process Merchant admits was "very labour intensive".

Horror

Both are quick to point out that they have not shared Andy Millman's experience of seeing his artistic vision compromised.

However, Gervais admits it is surprising the BBC was so trusting of the relative newcomers who made The Office.

"It's certainly not based on our experience - we didn't have any interference," says Gervais.

"They really let us auteur it."

Merchant adds: "This is the horror version of what could have happened to us."

The first series of Extras managed to overcome the massive level of expectation that followed the phenomenal success of The Office.

The BBC Two series averaged 3.9 million viewers an episode and won the Rose d'Or international award for best sitcom.

Gervais's co-star Ashley Jensen, playing fellow extra Maggie Jacobs, won the best sitcom actress Rose d'Or and two British Comedy Awards.

Celebrity cameos

After stars including Samuel L Jackson, Ben Stiller and Kate Winslet lampooned themselves in the first series, the six new episodes will include appearances by Sir Ian McKellen, David Bowie, Chris Martin of Coldplay and Daniel "Harry Potter" Radcliffe.

But Gervais says his performance of the series "comes from a little, fat scouser called Keith Chegwin".

He adds: "It's not like we are just trying to get points for celebrity chums - there has to be something we can deconstruct."

The first episode of the new series sees a vain Orlando Bloom showing off magazine articles that name him the world's sexiest movie star, and incredulous when Maggie reveals she is not attracted to him.

"He did say when we got him the first draft he loved it and said we can go further if we want," says Gervais.

"They either get it or they don't. If they get it, they trust us and we can go anywhere. It's never happened that someone has said, 'I just can't do this.'"

Drama

Gervais and Merchant admit they would like to produce "something more dramatic" in the future.

The pair admit to being inspired by US dramas such as The Sopranos, 24 and The Shield.

"All the things we like at the moment are coming out of America," says Gervais.

"They are innovative, audacious and done brilliantly and taking on film."

Currently, though, all their energies are focused on finishing editing Extras.

"We get so exhausted at this stage that we say we are never going to do anything else ever again," concedes Merchant.

The second series of Extras starts on BBC Two on Thursday 14 September at 9pm.

Whitney Houston to end rocky marriage

LOS ANGELES - The tumultuous marriage of Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown — which withstood drug addiction, Brown's numerous arrests, the decline of Houston's once-sparkling image and domestic abuse allegations — is coming to an end.

A publicist for Houston confirmed to The Associated Press that the Grammy-winning, superstar singer had filed for divorce after 14 years of marriage.

Publicist Nancy Seltzer declined to reveal where or when Houston filed the divorce papers, and said the singer had no statement to make.

"I can just confirm that she has filed for divorce," Seltzer said Wednesday.

Brown's lawyer said Houston had filed papers for a legal separation.

Houston and Brown, who had a home in Alpharetta, Ga., have one child, a 13-year-old daughter, Bobbi Kristina.

When they wed in 1992 the union seemed to outsiders to be a mismatch. Houston — once one of the best-selling singers in history — was a glamorous, pop superstar with a super-clean, princess-like persona, whereas Brown, who rose to fame as a member of the boy band New Edition before striking out on his own, was a sometimes coarse R&B singer with a more street-wise image.

But as the years wore on, it would become hard to determine which one was more troubled. Brown — best known for hits like "My Prerogative" and "Every Little Step" — would be arrested numerous times for drugs and alcohol, while Houston's own battles with substance abuse sullied her image.

Together, the two were a tabloid editor's dream. When Brown was released from a stretch in jail a few years ago, an ecstatic Houston greeted him by jumping into his arms and throwing her arms and legs around him before a throng of fans and media.

And in a 2002 ABC interview with Diane Sawyer, an erratic-sounding and wan-looking Houston, with a profusely sweating Brown by her side, admitted dabbling in drugs but denied using crack, then uttered the now famous phrase: "Crack is wack."

Houston checked into a drug rehabilitation program in 2004 and again in 2005, announcing the second time that she was also using prayer to help overcome her drug problems. Brown said at the time he was doing what he could to help her.

"It takes two to make things work, so I have to be there for her just like she was there for me when I went through my rehab stint," he told "Access Hollywood".

The couple did separate for a time a few years ago, but their marriage endured, despite rumors and speculation. Their life was put on display last year with Brown's reality series, "Being Bobby Brown" on Bravo. The show actually made Brown look like a stable influence, while a jittery Houston was on display; the couple often crudely talked about their marriage and love life.

But earlier this year, the speculation of a possible split intensified. Brown's sister made headlines when she alleged in a National Enquirer interview that Houston was addicted to crack. She also supplied photos of what she said was Houston's bathroom, littered with garbage and evidence of drug use.

Phaedra Parks, an entertainment lawyer in Atlanta who represents Brown, said he told her Wednesday that Houston recently filed paperwork in California seeking a separation.

"It is a legal separation. It is not a divorce or a divorce petition," Parks said.

Parks said she has not seen the documents and didn't know which court they were filed in.

Asked about speaking with Brown, Parks said, "Bobby's not speaking with anyone at this time."

Recently, Houston has made attempts to clean up her public image. On Tuesday night, she attended a public event with cousin Dionne Warwick and mogul and mentor Clive Davis in Beverly Hills. And she is working on an album of new material; she hasn't released a record since 2002.

Houston, 43, won multiple Grammys in the 1980s and 1990s, including two for the megahit "I Will Always Love You," from the 1992 film "The Bodyguard," in which she also starred opposite Kevin Costner.

"I Will Always Love You," won Grammys for record of the year and best female pop vocal, and "The Bodyguard" soundtrack won album of the year.

Houston also won Grammys in 1985 and 1987 for best female pop vocal for "Saving All my Love for You" and "I Want to Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)." She won a Grammy for best female R&B vocal in 1999 for "It's Not Right But It's Okay."

Her musician husband recently reunited with New Edition for a show at July's Essence Musical Festival. The show got mixed reviews from the audience when Brown jumped suggestively around the stage and made vulgar remarks about his sex life with Houston.

4 New boxes for 007

As it seems to happen each time a Bond film comes out, a new series of box sets of the superspy are available. There is no exception for the upcoming release of Casino Royale this winter. The twenty current Bond titles will be released in four sets this fall and winter as new two-disc ultimate editions from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Volumes 1 and 2 will arrive on Nobember 7th.

Vol. 1 will contain Diamonds Are Forever, Goldfinger, The Living Daylights, The Man With The Golden Gun and The World Is Not Enough.

Vol. 2 will include Die Another Day, License To Kill, The Spy Who Loved Me, Thunderball and A View To A Kill.

Volumes 3 and 4 arrive on Devember 12th and Vol. 3 includes Goldeneye, Live And Let Die, For Your Eyes Only, From Russia With Love and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Vol. 4 includes Dr. No, You Only Live Twice, Octopussy, Tomorrow Never Dies and Moonraker.

Again, no real order to the titles releases, so fans will likley rearrange them into whatever order they like, and for the pretty box lovers, there will be no room for Casino Royale.

Ah well. The supplements haven't been fully announced, but each title will be completely remastered and will be presented in anamorphic widescreen and DTS 5.1 sound.

Plenty of new supplements are available as well, but no word on how much of the extensive extras from the existnig sets will be available.

U.K. letter writers to get Beatles stamps

Beginning in January, letter writers in Britain will be able to send their missives with the stamp of the Beatles.

Britain's Royal Mail plans to salute the Fab Four with a set of six commemorative stamps to be released in January. It released images of the stamps on Tuesday.

The stamps, for 64 and 72 pence, have images of six album covers — the first being With the Beatles, their second album, released in 1963.

In North America, this album was called Meet the Beatles and was the first release.

Others in the series include 1965's Help, 1966's Revolver, 1967's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and 1970's Let It Be.

But the stamp collectors' treasure will surely be the album cover of Abbey Road, with its distinctive zebra crossing, a place of pilgrimage for visitors to London.

The cover shows the Beatles walking across the street outside the Abbey Road studio, with Paul McCartney barefoot.

Alanis Morissette Guests on 'Nip/Tuck'

LOS ANGELES -- To the long list of high-profile guest stars on FX's "Nip/Tuck," you can now add Alanis Morissette.

The singer, who has a handful of acting credits to her name, will appear on three episodes of the provocative drama later this fall. She'll be playing a character named Poppy, a love interest for Liz Cruz (Roma Maffia), the anesthesiologist for plastic surgeons Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) and Christian Troy (Julian McMahon).

Her first appearance is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 31.

Morissette has won seven Grammys in her career, including album of the year in 1995 for the mega-selling "Jagged Little Pill." She's also been nominated for two Golden Globes for best song in a motion picture: "Uninvited" from "City of Angels" and "Wunderkind" from "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe."

Her acting credits include the Kevin Smith movies "Dogma" and "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" -- in which she played God -- and guest appearances on "Sex and the City," "American Dreams" and "Degrassi: The Next Generation."

In addition to Morissette, "Nip/Tuck" will feature the likes of Brooke Shields, Peter Dinklage, Jacqueline Bisset, Sanaa Lathan, Larry Hagman and Rosie O'Donnell as guest stars this season.

Chill-y Finale for 'Big Brother'

LOS ANGELES -- The shomance was definitely over as former bedmates Mike "Boogie" Malin and Erika Landin went in front of a jury of their housemates on Tuesday night's finale of "Big Brother: All-Stars."

The show began with the last week's evictee Janelle Pierzina joining the other six jury members -- Marcellas Reynolds, Howie Gordon, Danielle Reyes, "Chicken" George Boswell, Will Kirby and James Rhine -- to hash out the actions of the final two.

Having only seen the nomination and veto ceremonies, competitions and evictions -- but none of the personal conversations or diary room interviews -- the group was then given an opportunity to ask both Mike and Erika a final question. The tone of the queries and and answers showed the tide definitely turning against Erika.

She stumbled around when "Chicken" George asked how she could vote him out after assuring him that he was safe, while Janelle asked if "kissing butt and throwing competitions" was part of her strategy. James also called Erika on using "flirting" and "hooking up" as part of her game play after putting down those tactics when used by another player.

In her final statements before the votes were cast, Erika spoke of coming into the house and her need to go after "the Puppetmaster" (Will, Mike's "Chilltown" partner and winner of Season Two), hanging her hat on manipulating how "his best friend put him up and his best girl vote him out."

Mike let the group in on the secret of the game, that they were all members of Chilltown who were eliminated when they started to figure things out. He then concluded by saying he was "motivated" by Marcellas, "entertained" by Howie, "challenged" by Janelle and James, "inspired" by Danielle and George and "all of the above" by Will.

This was more than enough to sway everyone to vote for him, except for Marcellas who was the sole vote for Erika.

While Mike won the $500,000 grand prize, Erika took consolation with the $50,000 second place purse. Jury member Janelle also went home $25,000 richer, thanks to America's votes to award her with the Jury Prize.

James Cromwell & Eddie Izzard Clock-In On '24' (FOX)

Oscar- and Emmy-nominated actor James Cromwell ("Babe," "Six Feet Under") and Emmy Award-winning actor Eddie Izzard ("Dress to Kill," "My Super Ex-Girlfriend") join the season six cast of 24, this year's most Emmy Award-winning television series, including Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series (Kiefer Sutherland) and Outstanding Drama Series. The clock for "Day Six" will begin to tick in January, Mondays (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX.

The highly respected Cromwell will recur this season as PHILLIP BAUER, the estranged father of JACK BAUER (Sutherland), while British actor/comedian Izzard will portray a villainous accomplice, DARREN McCARTHY. In addition to Cromwell and Izzard, newcomers joining the pulse-pounding thriller include Kal Penn ("Harold & Kumar"), Marisol Nichols ("In Justice"), Alexander Siddig ("Syriana") and Harry Lennix ("Commander in Chief"). Eric Balfour and Carlo Rota will reprise their respective roles as CTU contractors MILO PRESSMAN and MORRIS O'BRIAN.

Season five concluded with a battered and bloodied Bauer captured by Chinese government agents and headed for points unknown.

Season six picks up 20 months later. Wayne Palmer (DB Woodside), the strong-minded brother of the late President David Palmer, is now himself the President of the United States, while his sister, Sandra Palmer (Regina King), is a determined and powerful advocacy lawyer.

After a series of horrific terrorist attacks, Palmer and his team of advisors, KAREN Hayes (Jayne Atkinson) and THOMAS LENNOX (Peter MacNicol) – as well as CTU colleagues CHLOE O'BRIAN (Mary Lynn Rajskub), CURTIS MANNING (Roger Cross) and BILL BUCHANAN (James Morrison) – begin an unthinkable, nail-biting day.

Reports Britney Spears gives birth to second baby

And so, it has come to pass: Britney Spears has more babies than Grammys.

The onetime chart-topper gave birth to her second child, a boy, about 2 a.m. Tuesday at a Los Angeles hospital, a source confirmed to E! News.

The newborn--name not yet known--weighed in at 6 pounds and 11 ounces, per the National Enquirer, which was first out with the nursery news.

Spears endured her labor day at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Us Weekly said.

Up until Tuesday, the singer's baby boy was a baby girl, at least according to stork watchers, who confidently predicted an XX-chromosomal bundle of joy named Jailynn for the performer.

The XY-equipped offspring is the second for Spears and husband Kevin Federline in the past 12 months. Their firstborn, Sean Preston, arrived last Sept. 14.

Reports of the latest Spears-Federline production were rampant Tuesday, fueled by Enquirer and Us Weekly Website postings. As of late Tuesday afternoon, the couple's camp still had not formally confirmed or denied the stories, although Spears' father, Jamie, was indirectly quoted as telling Access Hollywood that he'd seen the new baby.

An even more prolific procreator than Spears, Federline is now officially the father of four, including two from a previous relationship with former Moesha actress Shar Jackson.

On average, the 28-year-old Federline has fathered a baby every seven years. If one throws out his presumed prepuberty years, the aspiring rapper and penny proponent has averaged, from age 13 on, one child tax credit every 3.75 years.

Spears, 24, announced her latest pregnancy in May on the Late Show with David Letterman. In June, she showed off her pregnancy, bare stomach and all, on the cover of Harper's Bazaar.

Spears' first year as a mother was marked by paparazzi-driven controversy--and more than one visit from social workers.

In February, the "Oops" singer was scrutinized for driving an SUV with son Sean Preston on her lap. In April, she and Federline were quizzed about a reputed head injury to the baby. No formal investigation was opened, and Spears and Federline were not deemed responsible for the injury--said to have occurred in an accidental fall from a high chair.

"I can't go anywhere without someone judging me," Spears told NBC's Matt Lauer in June.

The baby-in-the-lap-while-driving thing, the Louisiana-born singer explained, was an old Spears family tradition: "We're country."

Spears, once a teen pop queen thanks to "...Baby One More Time," "Sometimes" and more hits, hasn't released an album of new material in nearly three years. She won her lone Grammy in 2004 for Best Dance Recording for "Toxic."

Apple's iTunes to start selling movies

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Computer Inc. said on Tuesday it will begin selling movie downloads from Walt Disney Co.'s film studios, aiming to turn its iTunes online music store into a one-stop shop for digital entertainment.

Chief Executive Steve Jobs also said Apple planned to ship a device in the first quarter of 2007 to let consumers stream movies, music, photos, podcasts and television shows to their home entertainment systems. Code-named iTV, it will cost $299.

Jobs said iTV and other new products will put Apple squarely in homes, cars and consumer pockets as it looks to stamp its mark on all aspects of the digital lifestyle.

"I hope this gives you a little bit of an idea of where we are going," Jobs said at an event in San Francisco, where he also unveiled new versions of the popular iPod media player.

Apple's eagerly anticipated movie service will sell new releases from the Disney, Pixar, Touchstone and Miramax studios for $12.99 if pre-ordered or bought during the first week available. Normally, new releases will cost $14.99 and other feature-length films will cost $9.99.

Jobs said about 75 films are now available on iTunes, and that they take about 30 minutes each to download for users with high-speed Internet connections. Consumers can view the movies on their iPods and computers, and eventually on televisions with the upcoming iTV player.

"In less than one year we've grown from offering just five TV shows to offering over 220 TV shows, and we hope to do the same with movies," Jobs said. "iTunes is selling over 1 million videos a week, and we hope to match that with movies in less than a year."

Jobs, a Disney director and one of the company's largest individual shareholders, also introduced new versions of the iPod with brighter screens and longer battery life as Apple looks to expand its dominant position in digital music.

Analysts have said it was only a matter of time before Apple started selling full-length movie downloads via iTunes, which has already sold 1.5 billion songs and more than 45 million TV shows.

If Apple's efforts are ultimately successful, the company could solve the entertainment industry's current dilemma: how to bridge the gap between the living room TV and the computer.

If Apple can do that, analysts have said, they can see the potential for another round of robust growth at a time when the company is facing a growing contingent of competitors in the digital music market, including from Microsoft Corp..

There are already competitors in the nascent movie download market, including CinemaNow, Movielink and Amazon.com Inc..

Other new devices unveiled on Tuesday include an iPod with the most capacity to date -- an 80 gigabyte player that would cost $349. Apple said new versions of the popular digital music players would sport video games such as Pac-Man and Tetris.

The company also introduced a thinner iPod Nano available in five colors with 24 hours' battery life. The new Nanos will sell for $149, $199 and $249.

Apple introduced a 1 gigabyte Shuffle that holds up to 240 songs and is nearly half the size of the original version. It will sell for $79.

Apple shares ended up 0.18 percent at $72.63 on Nasdaq.

All 48 original Simpsons shorts available for download

The Simpsons has been on for so long, that many people don't remember how they discovered the show. But if you scrunch your forehead and think hard, you'll probably remember that Matt Groening's signature creation did not start life as a half-hour cartoon sitcom in 1989. No, it started life in 1987 as a series of shorts that bracketed the commercial breaks on The Tracey Ullman Show, and it looked a whole lot different than it does today.

Until now, there was no easy way for a person to view those shorts in their entirety (well, I'm sure there were Torrents of the shorts, but those aren't that easy to find). The site Simpson Crazy has taken care of that, though; they have made all 48 shorts available for download. Just looking at the download page is a great illustration of how much the characters changed in the two years' worth of shorts, to the point where they look pretty much like the Simpsons that you saw during the half-hour show's first season.

Two caveats: The videos are in AVI format, and you need the DivX codec in order to play it in Windows Media Player. The site has the link.

Christopher Guest spoofs own biz

After spoofing smalltown theatre (Waiting For Guffman), dog shows (Best In Show) and folk music (A Mighty Wind), you'd expect a spoof of the Hollywood Oscar machinery to be less research-heavy for director Christopher Guest.

But the director of those hilarious rep company movies with the improvised dialogue is somewhat at sea talking showbiz. This despite the razor-sharp verisimilitude in the hilarious film For Your Consideration, which is playing at Toronto's filmfest, and is skedded to open in theatres in November.

"Who's Billy Bush?" Guest says, when I mention the "Billy Bush-haircut" Fred Willard has as the co-host of a show called "Entertainment Now." We're seated at a table with co-writer Eugene Levy and Guest collaborator Michael McKean.

Levy and I jointly explain that he's a relative of the president who's become a "name" in the entertainment-magazine biz. "There you go, never heard of him," Guest says. Later Levy refers to Access Hollywood's Pat O'Brien and Guest gives another blank look. In his house, he admits, it's his wife Jamie-Lee Curtis who reads "the showbusiness sections."

But as with dog shows, he poured himself into entertainment journalism, the better to frame his story of a small "prestige" film that falls prey to ego meltdown when an Internet rumour about "Oscar-calibre" performances causes the Hollywood machine to take notice. The aging diva (Catherine O'Hara), the ingenue (Parker Posey) and the veteran character actor (Harry Shearer) all get caught up in the gamesmanship and talk-show whirl.

"I had never seen an entertainment magazine show, and I needed to see one," says Guest. "I went on set to see what the physical set looked like. And someone taped for me one of those shows so I could see how they directed it. I was stunned."

Says Levy: "It's not as easy to spoof the business as you think just because you're in it. The business is a parody of itself already. The Oscars are in February, but they're doing Oscar picks already. They'll be doing them two years in advance soon."

"It's like Snakes On A Plane," adds McKean, "where people were literally writing the movie on their computers at home. A guy posts and says, 'I hope there's a scene where the guy ends up being bitten on the penis.' And the director is reading it and says 'This is good stuff. We're gonna reshoot.'"

"It's like we're mirroring a mirror of a mirror," Levy adds.

Guest's own inspiration for "the Oscar virus" goes back nearly 30 years. "It really came from my observing this behaviour over the years where people hear 'You're going to win an Academy Award,' and 100% of the time they aren't even nominated.

"I remember in 1979, I was doing a movie and we were three weeks into shooting. And somebody said to the director of photography 'You'd better get your tuxedo ready.' We were nowhere near finishing, and I could see a change in this guy, where he became even more pretentious. It really was interesting."

As with the earlier films, there's a stock repertory company entrusted to improvise lines within strictly defined scenes and character-outlines. People like Don Lake, Bob Balaban, Ed Begley Jr., McKean, etc., and director Guest himself (who plays the director of the film "Home For Purim" in the film).

"It's not arbitrary that these people are always in all these movies," Guest says. "They're all great (ad libbers)." And of course, they have their specialties. As with Willard's E-host, who hosts a nomination day segment on Oscar losers. "There's a meanness to it, a callousness to it, an insensitivity to it, and Fred Willard is the king of that world," Guest says, as Levy and McKean laugh. "He's great (playing characters) where he doesn't have a clue emotionally how he affects other people."

Not that it's all ad-libbed. "Occasionally there's a thing we write," Guest says. "As in Spinal Tap when we talked about the volume going to '11.' Obviously that was scripted because we had to have a knob made."

Barenaked Ladies growing up

People expect the Barenaked Ladies to be funny and goofy. But what if they don't always feel funny and goofy?

It's a psychological battle the veteran Canadian band has waged for the past decade and a half.

"It's still something I struggle with," singer Steven Page says.

"Because of the image we created for ourselves, which has been turned into a caricature by the audience and the media and everybody else around us, it has pushed away a lot of people who probably would like the music.

"I worry about that less than I used to. But it always was an issue for me. You're on stage singing a heartfelt song and some idiot is yelling, 'Smile, come on, smile.'"

The Barenaked Ladies' quirky side is entertaining, too, but they're middle-aged men with children now.

The group appears to have carved out a tuneful middle ground between frivolity and seriousness with its new CD, Barenaked Ladies Are Me, which hits stores today. But finding that balance hasn't always been easy.

"Even by the second album, we felt a little bit typecast," drummer Tyler Stewart said. "And also, we sometimes were our own worst enemies in that the persona we portrayed for a number of years was always the goofy guys in shorts -- but we really were those guys.

"The thing is, we also were serious songwriters and capable musicians. But we always have been addicted to applause, and we weren't willing to let a show go south. You know, we probably are best known for If I Had $1,000,000 or quirkier songs like that, but then again, they haven't been our biggest hits."

The Barenaked Ladies -- Page, Stewart, Ed Robertson, Jim Creeggan and Kevin Hearn -- have been active as a band since the late 1980s. They have reached the stage in their professonal lives where they can dictate their own agendas now, but they still enjoy feeding off each other's energy.

"The title of the CD is a little ironic, because we finally are learning to not be so tied to our identity in the band," Page said. "We all understand that we could not do this and be okay.

"I used to always feel like, 'If this went away, what would I do?' But we can exist as people who have families, or people who have skills, so we choose to come together to make music.

"In a sense, Barenaked Ladies are me, but Barenaked Ladies aren't really me."

This is not to imply the band is eyeing retirement.

"Look at somebody like Woody Allen, who did those early screwball comedies," Stewart said, referring to the legendary movie-maker. "But you still can go to see a Woody Allen movie today and you laugh."

At this point Page interjected.

"I think we should stop this right now, because nobody laughs at (Allen's) movies anymore," Page said.

"I do," Stewart said.

"But I would be loath to say we're at that stage of our career," Page added. Allen is 70 years old, by the way.

"Anyway," Stewart concluded, "the point I'm making is that (Allen) evolved."

The Couch Potato Report - September 12th, 2006

This week The Couch Potato Report shines the spotlight on one of the Greatest Canadians, and some TV Shows on DVD Box Sets.

With all due respect to Tommy Douglas, it is my opinion that Terry Fox is the Greatest Canadian

In 1977, when he was only 18, Terry was diagnosed with a form of cancer called osteosarcoma. At the time the only way to treat his condition was to remove his right leg several inches above the knee.

Three years after losing his leg he decided to run across Canada in order to raise money for the fight against cancer.

He created the Marathon of Hope and once his initial target of one million dollars was in reach, he then hoped to raise one dollar for every Canadian.

On April 12th, 1980, Terry dipped his artificial leg in the Atlantic Ocean at St. John's, Newfoundland.

His goal was to dip it again in the Pacific Ocean at Victoria, British Columbia, but cancer had spread to his lungs.

Terry was forced to abandon his Marathon on September 1st, 1980, just northeast of Thunder Bay, Ontario.

After 143 days Terry had run 5,373 km - 3,339 miles - through Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario, all on one leg.

After stopping his Marathon Terry pledged to finish the Run, if he was able to. Sadly, he wasn’t and Terry Fox died less than a year later, on June 28th, 1981, just one month shy of his twenty-third birthday.

Even if it wasn’t true, and truly inspirational, Terry Fox’s life would make a great movie.

But one of the hardest types of films to make are biographies.

Movies are movies and since they are made to entertain and make money, sometimes facts and situations have to be changed for “cinematic” reasons.

Filmmakers call this “creative license.”

Sometimes those changes aren’t that noticeable - for instance the Johnny Cash Biography WALK THE LINE features several scenes with Cash on tour with Elvis.

In real life the two did know each other, but they did not go on tour together.

However, those scenes work for the film and there was little debate about that fact when the film came out.

Other times the changes are very noticeable - as the ongoing debate over PRAIRIE GIANT: THE TOMMY DOUGLAS STORY proves.

For that movie the filmmakers portrayed former Saskatchewan premier James Gardiner as arrogant, self-centered and vindictive.

Mr. Gardiner’s family has spent the better part of the past year saying he was anything but the way he was portrayed and defending his honour. As a result CBC has agreed to pull PRAIRIE GIANT from all scheduled broadcasts in response to criticisms it was historically inaccurate.

Yes, one of the hardest types of films to make are biographies.

So far, there have no been two films made about Terry Fox. The first was 1983’s THE TERRY FOX STORY and while it is a pretty good movie, it is quite flawed - to the point where it ignores the fact that Terry has two brothers and not just one.

The second film was TERRY. This was a tele-film that aired on CTV on September 11th, 2005.

Now, if you don’t know me personally, and haven’t figured this out yet, I admire and respect Terry Fox. He is one of my personal idols and, while I don’t know him, I know almost everything there is to know about him and the Marathon of Hope.

That said, I was still able to put the creative license of the filmmakers aside and I enjoyed TERRY.

Shawn Ashmore, a Canadian actor from British Columbia who is best know as Iceman in the X-MEN films does a good job as Terry and the rest of the cast are very believable as well.

Plus, the movie was shot on many of the actual locations where the Marathon Of Hope took place, and it gets extra points from me for that as well.

TERRY is not a perfect film, but I am not sure anyone could make a perfect film about the man I consider to be our Greatest Canadian.

That is because there will always be too much about Terry Fox to fit in a movie. He is bigger then life, and he is much bigger than any movie.

By the way, the 26th Annual Terry Fox Run will take place on Sunday - September 17th - and you can find out more about it at www.terryfoxrun.org.

And if you would like to sponsor my Terry Fox Run, just click RIGHT HERE.

In addition to the date of the annual The Terry Fox Run, the third week in September usually means the start of the new television season and many of our favourite shows will soon be making their season debuts.

In order to get us ready for the new seasons, the studios have released a wide array of comprehensive multi-disc DVD box sets.

And I have spent the last few weeks watching almost all of them - specifically I have watched the box sets for THE OFFICE - SEASON TWO, GREY'S ANATOMY - SEASON TWO, LAS VEGAS - SEASON THREE and THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON of LOST, so let me recap.

While some feel it is blasphemy to praise the American remake of the classic BBC series THE OFFICE, I do not. While the British version is superior, Steve Carell and the cast and writers of the American one continuously come up with unique and interesting situations and jokes that make me laugh. That is the primary thing I expect from a comedy and there are many, many laughs in SEASON TWO of THE OFFICE.

THE OFFICE takes place in an office of a paper supply company and I highly recommend it, both in it’s original incarnation and the remake.

I also recommended season one of GREY’S ANATOMY when it came out on DVD, but while I was watching the SECOND SEASON of this drama centered on the personal and professional lives of five surgical interns and their supervisors, I couldn’t remember why.

GREY’S ANATOMY is one of the top ten shows on TV, and I know that it found many new fans during this SECOND SEASON, but I just didn’t enjoy this season as much as I did the first one.

I think that is because I am fascinated by medical shows and people who work in hospitals. SEASON TWO of GREY’S ANATOMY didn’t fascinate me, and I grew tired of the soap opera side of the show.

That said, the show is still as addictive as always, and I will watch SEASON THREE when that box set comes out next year.

Just as I watched SEASON THREE of LAS VEGAS.

In my reviews of past seasons of LAS VEGAS I have used the words “guilty pleasure” to describe it and I still feel that way because of that fact that Nikki Cox is one of the show’s stars.

But SEASON THREE of this show about a Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, where you can do anything you want, as long as you stay out of the way of the security and surveillance team that will be watching, wasn’t as entertaining as the first two.

Yet, it does try to be different and I give it points for that. I especially enjoyed the episode called “Everything old is you again” where the whole show took place in Vegas in the glory days of the 1960s.

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, but if the producers of the TV show about the city want to keep me interested, they should film more of the types of stories we should never see and leave the dramatic stuff to DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES.

Alright, now, finally this week is THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON of LOST.

A year ago LOST was a show I loved, craved, and couldn’t wait to watch every week. Today, LOST is a show I watch because I want to see what happens, but it has definitely lost most of it’s magic for me.

However, it did get some of it’s luster back when I watched this seven disc set because it allowed me to watch the Hanso Foundation instructional films a few times, I was able to look closer at the map on the back of the door in the hatch, and I saw more than a few things I missed the first time around when I was watching it on TV.

Now if you don’t know what any of that means, I still recommend that you go back and watch LOST from the beginning, even if SEASON TWO isn’t as good as season one.

But I do still have high hopes for SEASON THREE and I will be watching when the new season premieres on Wednesday, October 4th.

The second seasons of LOST, GREY’S ANATOMY and THE OFFICE and LAS VEGAS - SEASON THREE are all now available on DVD.

So is the very good TERRY, the latest film biography about Terry Fox.

Coming up on the next Couch Potato Report

HARD CANDY is a Canadian film that is hard to explain, but I will do my best next week.

And after months of waiting, BATTLESTAR GALLACTICA - SEASON 2.5 will finally debut on DVD!!

I'm Dan Reynish. I'll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.

For now, that's this week's COUCH POTATO REPORT.

Enjoy the movies and I'll see you back here next time on The Couch!

Nikita director Luc Besson says he's finished with filmmaking

Luc Besson, the French director of The Big Blue, Nikita and The Fifth Element, says his latest movie will be his last.

The 47-year-old filmmaker said Monday he wants to devote himself to other personal projects, including a foundation to help young people in France's depressed inner cities.

"I want to take a little care of my fellow citizens. I want to take a little care of my planet. I want to act in favour of the inner cities, in favour of the environment. I want to do lots of things," he said.

Besson's 10th directorial effort, the animated Arthur et les Minimoys, opens in France this December.

"They are my 10 little babies," he told a French radio program. "I love them all. I am pleased to have completed this cycle. That is finished."

In a lengthy interview, Besson said he would cease creating movies but did not say if he will cut himself off completely from the business.

Besson was usually the producer and director of his films, which include 1994's Léon (The Professional) starring Natalie Portman and The Transporter in 2002.

He also wrote films such as The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc starring Milla Jovovich and most recently, Banlieu 13 ( District B13).

Banlieu 13 was released in Canada in August and hinted at Besson's concerns about deteriorating conditions in the suburbs of Paris.

Condemnation of political elites

The action flick is set in a Paris ghetto in the near future. It's become so lawless and run by drug lords that the government decides to cordon it off.

Although the plot surrounds an undercover cop who must go into the ghetto to recover a stolen missile, the ending is a condemnation of France's political elites and their treatment of the disadvantaged — a thinly veiled reference to the ethnically charged riots in Paris suburbs in 2005.

Born in Paris, Besson began his movie career in the 1980s, directing his first movie, The Last Battle, in 1983. Born to two scuba divers, he also made Atlantis, an underwater wildlife documentary, in 1991.

Besson hit it big with 1990's La Femme Nikita (known as Nikita in North America), starring Anne Parillaud as a vicious street urchin hired by a secret organization to become a contract killer.

IMDB.com lists five more projects Besson has produced that are due out in 2006 and 2007, including the Jodie Foster-directed Flora Plum.

New Releases, Sept. 12: Justin Timberlake, Bob Seger, John Mayer

Justin Timberlake "FutureSex/LoveSounds"

The former leader of 'NSync has definitely stacked the cards in his favor this time around. For "FutureSex/LoveSounds," his follow-up to 2002's multi-platinum debut "Justified," Timberlake has called upon such A-list producers as Timbaland, Nate Hills, Will.I.Am (Black Eyed Peas) and Rick Rubin. The first single from the set is "SexyBack."

Last month, Timberlake got the hype machine rolling by embarking on a brief US club tour, which hit seven cities in a little over two weeks. His previous tour found the singer performing at major arenas across the country.

* * *
Bob Seger "Face the Promise"

The 61-year-old legend, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, finally returns with his first studio album in 11 years. Seger's last album was 1995's "It's a Mystery."

The first single from the new set, which is said to lean toward high-energy rockers, is titled "Wait For Me." The disc also contains two duets--"Real Mean Bottle" (with Kid Rock) and "The Answer's in the Question" (with Patty Loveless).

"It's a Mystery" is the latest chapter in a highly successful career that has stretched nearly 40 years. Seger's resume includes a lifetime albums-sales mark of almost 50 million and his 1994 "Greatest Hits" collection, which has sold more than 7 million copies.

* * *
John Mayer "Continuum"

Having spent time with the John Mayer Trio, a group that features bassist Pino Palladino and drummer Steve Jordan, the pop idol reclaims the spotlight with this solo offering.

"Continuum" is Mayer's first solo studio record since 2003's "Heavier Things." He did, however, release a concert disc in 2005--titled "Try!"--that featured his trio. The first single from the new album is "Waiting on the World to Change."

The vocalist/guitarist is currently on a co-headlining tour with Sheryl Crow, which stretches through a two-night stand (10/13-14) in Atlanta.

* * *
Shawn Colvin "These Four Walls"

The three-time Grammy winner is back with her first offering since 2001's "Whole New You." This is the folk singer's first release on Nonesuch, having spent the majority of her professional career on Columbia Records.

The disc was recorded in Texas and New York with producer John Leventhal, and features such guests as Patty Griffin, Marc Cohn and Teddy Thompson.

Colvin will support the CD with a round of fall tour dates, currently set to begin Oct. 11 in Baltimore and end Nov. 14 in New York City.

* * *
The Mars Volta "Amputechture"

The acclaimed prog-rock outfit deals its third album, which is the follow-up to 2005's "Frances the Mute." The band is currently on the road supporting the Red Hot Chili Peppers. John Frusciante, the Peppers' guitarist, is featured on "Amputechture."

* * *
More new releases:
Barenaked Ladies, "Barenaked Ladies Are Me" (Desperation)
Black Keys, "Magic Potion" (Nonesuch)
Black Label Society, "Shot to Hell" (Roadrunner)
Carbon Leaf, "Love, Loss, Hope, Repeat" (Vanguard)
Kasey Chambers, "Carnival" (Warner Bros.)
Robert Cray Band, "Live from Across the Pond" (Vanguard)
The Duhks, "Migrations" (Sugar Hill)
Peter Frampton, "Fingerprints" (New Door)
Mastodon, "Blood Mountain" (Reprise)
Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau, "Metheny/Mehldau" (Nonesuch)
Madeleine Peyroux, "Half the Perfect World" (Rounder)
R.E.M., "And I Feel Fine: Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982-1987" (Capitol/I.R.S.)
Lionel Richie, "Coming Home" (Island)
Vittorio, "Vittorio" (Decca)
Yo La Tengo, "I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass" (Matador)

Soundtracks and scores:
"Grey's Anatomy 2" (Hollywood)

Rush Wrestling With Faith On New Album

Rush has penned eight songs for its next studio album, which should be out in early 2007, according to drummer Neil Peart. The artist tells Billboard.com his lyrics for the as-yet-untitled set were greatly influenced by his motorcycle journeys throughout the United States, chronicled in the new book "Roadshow: Landscape With Drums."

Peart says he was struck by the ubiquity of religious billboards that have sprung up on America's highways, which got him thinking about some weighty topics. "Just seeing the power of evangelical Christianity and contrasting that with the power of fundamentalist religion all over the world in its different forms had a big effect on me," he says.

"You try to put your own way of seeing the world into some kind of congruence with other peoples, and that's difficult for me," he admits. "I mean, I see the world in what I think to be a perfectly obvious and rational way, but when you go out into it and see the way other people think and behave, and express themselves on church signs, you realize, 'Well, I'm not really part of this club.'"

"I looked for the good side of faith," Peart says. "To me it ought to be your armor, something to protect you and something to console you in dark times. But it's more often being turned into a sword, and that's one big theme I'm messing with."

Musically, the new album is continuing in much the same vein as 2002's "Vapor Trails," which returned Rush to a more guitar/bass/drums-driven sound. But Peart is quick to add that the music is "remarkably organic in a way that I haven't heard [from Rush] before. We spent a month together in May working on those songs and developing our individual instrument parts for them. It's early to characterize it, but it's definitely fresh and different and that's certainly satisfying."

Peart, bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson will regroup next month to finish pre-production and will begin recording in November. However, as Peart writes at the conclusion of "Roadshow," he is ambivalent about putting himself through yet another massive world tour.

"It is true that in 1989 I announced that I wasn't going to tour anymore, and have said that every time since and have gone back and decided [to do it] for all good reasons," he says. "One of the main ones to me is that a band plays live, so if I want to consider our band as a living, working thing then that's the case. I haven't in my own mind committed to [another tour] yet, but of course I haven't ruled it out, either."

Quebec diva Avila and Newfoundland's Sharpe wait for Idol crown

TORONTO (CP) - It's down to the diva from Quebec versus the power pipes of Newfoundland and Labrador.

But "Canadian Idol" fans will have to wait nearly a full week before learning if the country's next singing champ is soul-tinged Eva Avila of Gatineau, Que., or pop crooner Craig Sharpe of Upper Island Cove, N.L.

CTV won't reveal who got the most votes from Monday's final performance until the 90-minute "Idol" finale on Sunday.

The delay gives the network more time to prepare for the finale and drum up big audiences for the debuts of two new shows that will follow "Idol" on Sunday night, said executive producer John Brunton.

Brunton said he's not worried about potential leaks or lost momentum by delaying the announcement, traditionally made the day after the final performance show.

"There's not a chance in hell there will be a leak - I'll kill somebody if there's a leak," laughed Brunton, noting tight security measures have been put in place.

"Essentially, there will be a person who will know the results and the details of those results will not be revealed to anyone - anyone on the crew or anyone at CTV - until the need-to-know people will find out next Sunday."

He said the delay gives production staff more time to fine-tune performance details for the results show, which will feature sexy chart-topper Nelly Furtado, all top 10 competitors and last year's "Idol" winner, Melissa O'Neil.

"We wouldn't have been able to include all the things that we're hoping to include in the finale if we hadn't had the time to rehearse it," Brunton noted.

Monday's final performance show had Avila and Sharpe each tackle three songs - a favourite previously sung this season, a new selection, and the new Idol's single, "Meant to Fly," which will be released to radio stations after a winner is crowned.

Sharpe's version earned praise from all judges, spurring Zack Warner to leap out of his chair to embrace the dimpled 16-year-old on stage.

"That was without a doubt the best thing you've ever done on this show," said judge Jake Gold, who later criticized Sharpe for letting the band drown him out on Celine Dion's "I Surrender."

Avila also wowed the judges with her version of the uplifting ballad.

"It was your song - you delivered it like a goddess, fantastic," judge Sass Jordan said of the song, co-written by Winnipeg singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk and her husband Raine Maida of Our Lady Peace.

Avila, a 19-year-old former postal clerk and beauty consultant, is one of only two singers from Quebec to crack the top 10 and the first to reach the finale.

She says she was taught to sing by her father.

"It's thanks to him that I'm here, really," Avila said in the days leading up to Monday's show. "He's my inspiration."

Sharpe, a student known for his high tenor voice, is the second from the Rock in as many years to make the finale. Last year's finalist, Rex Goudie of Burlington, N.L., lost out to O'Neil.

"My dream is so close to me and I'm so nearly there, " Sharpe said last week. "I'm so happy. I can't believe I'm in the finale."

Celebrity fans in the audience included tabloid favourite/Tori Spelling rival Mary Jo Eustace, "Canada AM" host Seamus O'Regan and TSN's Michael Landsberg.

Longoria says 'Housewives' her last show

PASADENA, Calif. - Eva Longoria says she's done with television after "Desperate Housewives" ends. The 31-year-old actress said she loves the medium of television and the routine it provides, but that "Housewives" will be her last series.

"I would never leave `Desperate Housewives,'" Longoria told The Associated Press. "I love doing both (TV and film), but I would never do another TV show after `Desperate Housewives.' No."

Longoria, who plays saucy Gabrielle Solis on the ABC dramedy, can next be seen on the big screen in "How I Met My Boyfriend's Dead Fiancee," due in 2007. She made her mainstream movie debut opposite Michael Douglas in "The Sentinel" earlier this year.

The third season of "Desperate Housewives" begins Sept. 24.

Seinfeld - Sony Serves Up 7th Season of Seinfeld

Today, Sony is announcing the November 21st release of Seinfeld - Season 7. The 4-DVD set contains all 24 episodes, running 541 minutes and costing $49.95 SRP.

Here is Sony's early info (including bonus material):

The pivotal year for Seinfeld with nearly 34 million viewers weekly! It's got everything: love, engagements, deaths, secret ATM codes, soup, Marisa Tomei and more! This hilarious DVD is packed with all new special features created in partnership with Jerry Seinfeld.

Guest stars this season include Marisa Tomei, Debra Messing, Rob Schneider, Jerry Stiller, Janeane Garafolo, “soup Nazi” Larry Thomas, Larry David and more!

Includes all new popular Sein-Imation!
Notes About Nothing
Inside Looks (Episode-Specific “Mini Making of” Documentaries)
In the Vault (Deleted Scenes)
Not That There's Anything Wrong With That (Bloopers)
Yada Yada Yada (Commentaries)
And More!

Evanescence leader Lee unlocks 'Door'

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Amy Lee is sitting cross-legged in a lounge chair on the roof of New York's Dream Hotel. She's decked out in worn jeans and a Joan Jett T-shirt, and her pale-blue eyes are translucent -- a sharp contrast to her long dark hair.

In the past three years, her band Evanescence has skyrocketed to fame thanks to its 2003 Wind-up debut, "Fallen," which won two Grammy Awards and has sold 6.5 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

But as quickly as the band hit the big time, the threads that held its members together began to fray. Co-founder Ben Moody abruptly left mid-tour in 2003; his replacement, former Cold guitarist Terry Balsamo, suffered a stroke last year; and bassist Will Boyd, whom Lee has known since middle school, opted out of the group in July.

Adding to the drama, Lee split from her boyfriend, Seether frontman Shawn Morgan, and changed managers. But the artist says the trials have made her stronger and more independent. "It took me awhile to figure out who I was," she says. "I'm the youngest person in the band. I'm the leader of the band. I'm a chick. I learned how to say no and draw boundaries."

Indeed, Evanescence's new album "The Open Door," due October 3, is an ode to a stronger Lee.

Q: "Fallen" was a multiplatinum smash. Were you under pressure to produce a follow-up that could stand up to it?

A: I think people sometimes lose the love of what they do and just try to put out another record. That's a crime. If you don't feel it, wait until you're hungry for it. What's the point of making a huge piece of music if it's not for the love of the art.

It took longer than I thought. But, I am a perfectionist. We took all the time we needed and wrote and wrote and wrote. If it wasn't good, I threw it away. I wanted every piece of it to be as good as it possibly could be. We accomplished what I wanted, which was to do something that I was more proud of than what I'd done before. I constantly have to top myself, it's just the way I am.

Q: Is "The Open Door" thematically different from "Fallen?"

A: What music is for me and what Evanescence has been is me purging all of the negative and hard, difficult experiences that I've had in life. Naturally that's still coming across; I'm still purging the trials. I feel like this album comes from a place that is not so hopeless. The first album, I was talking about the hard stuff, but I was also wallowing in it. I wasn't strong enough to take a stand and say no in a lot of situations.

I listen back to "Fallen" now and definitely hear all the vulnerability and the fear and all the childish things in me that are just human. But I've grown so much now. The lyrics on the new album are looking for the answers, looking for the solutions, looking for happiness. It's not, "I'm miserable, end of song." It's more, "I'm miserable, and what do I have to do to work this out and get out of this bad situation."

Q: Have you matured?

A: Yes, I've learned how to say no. This is a bad situation. See the signs and say, "I'm out of here." Especially in relationships. You have to be willing to jump off the cliff and know that when you get to the bottom that it's going to be way better, and know it could also be crash and burn. Those are the times in my life that I've really broken through and had great joy, because I took those chances. At least when you're at the bottom and all alone again and starting over, it's a clean slate.

Q: What is it like having such a different configuration of the band?

A: The biggest difference is (the absence of) Ben (Moody). We formed the band together. We were the main writers. Without him, it wasn't like I was thinking, "Oh, my God, what am I going to do?" It really had gotten to the point where it was so horrible and dramatic, it was a relief and I knew the band could continue. When it came to writing, I had so much by then to write about, it was spilling out of me. I didn't know how to stop writing.

I have so much more freedom to do everything myself this time, for a lot of reasons. I wanted to prove that not only could I do it myself, but I could make a better album than before. I've never really tried to sit, say OK and just start writing and go for it and not have anyone to answer to, at all. I'm the boss. Here we go! If it sucks, I figure it out.

Q: Terry Balsamo replaced Moody and has become your songwriting partner. How do you guys write together?

A: It's a completely different writing process (than with Moody). He's completely laid-back. There's no pressure of wanting to rule the world. It's just about writing great music.

Terry and I will just sit in a room and jam. As simple as that is, it's completely different for me. I was so insecure at the time, though I didn't realize it then. I thought I was strong. It's so hard to let yourself be vulnerable. In front of a huge audience, it's not so bad, because it's just a sea of people. But in front of two people you know, it's impossible. It was a first for me to just make music as we go.

Q: You are prepping for a major tour. What are your expectations?

A: We just started rehearsals. I was really stressed. It's been two years since I've been onstage.

More than that, Terry had a stroke. It's been about nine months and he's doing great. We had our first day of practice and he's playing guitar on every song. That is such a big step. There was so much pressure, but I didn't want to hire another guitar player. We wrote this record together. I knew he was going to get better. I knew he'd make it just in time. The doctor couldn't believe he was still alive.

Our band has been through so much together by now, we couldn't be more tight onstage. We love each other.

Q: Why are there so few female rockers today?

A: In the music industry today, there are a lot of holes. There are things I miss, like great female rockers like Joan Jett. She totally inspired me and inspired guys and everybody everywhere. Where did they go? It seems like if there were any women in music, it was either R&B or easy listening. No one was rocking. No one had the real power, not the sex appeal, the real power of rock 'n' roll. We need chicks in rock.

Q: "Fallen" was first released in the Christian market. Do you consider Evanescence a Christian band?

A: Can we please skip the Christian thing? I'm so over it. It's the lamest thing. I fought that from the beginning; I never wanted to be associated with it. It was a Ben thing. It's over. It's a new day.

'Pirates of the Caribbean' becomes 3rd film to surpass $1B bounty

The Walt Disney epic Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest has continued to cut a swath through the box office, becoming the third film to surpass $1 billion US in worldwide ticket sales.

Disney confirmed that, by the weekend, the second in the swashbuckler series had sold $1.003 billion US gross.

Titanic, directed in 1997 by Canadian James Cameron, still tops the list at $1.8 billion US, followed by Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), which amassed $1.1 billion US at the theatre.

However, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest has already beaten another record by taking in $135.6 million US at North American theatres on its opening weekend. It beat a record held by Spider-Man (2002).

A third film, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, is already shooting in Los Angeles with principal cast members Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom.

Sources in Hollywood say Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards has flown in to do a cameo.

Depp is reported to have modelled his eccentric character, Capt. Jack Sparrow, on Richards, who is rumoured to be playing Sparrow's father. Producers have yet to announce what role the musician is playing.

Pirates has been topping the movie charts consistently over the summer season.

The first installment, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, grossed more than $677 million US at box offices worldwide.

The movie is based on a Disney theme park attraction.

Classic Duran Duran Videos Hitting The Web

For the first time, Duran Duran's glamorous, bold and sometimes risque catalog of music videos will be made available as digital downloads beginning next month.

An initial offering of 20 videos will roll out Oct. 2 across video-enabled download services, as part of a worldwide initiative driven by EMI, with whom the group recorded for much of its 25-plus year career.

Groundbreaking promos for "Planet Earth," "Girls On Film," "Hungry Like the Wolf," "The Wild Boys" and "A View to a Kill" are among the first batch. Participating online retailers will set the price for the video downloads, according to an EMI spokesperson.

As part of the offering, an exclusive bundle will be available through Apple's iTunes Music Store, which includes two documentary shorts, "A Day in the Life" and "Liberty."

Keyboardist and founding member Nick Rhodes says band members welcome new opportunities in the digital music arena. "You have to accept that business has changed. We underwent the industrial revolution in the music business for the first time -- in many, many years -- over the last few years," Rhodes tells Billboard.com. "There were many of us, including myself and Duran Duran, who seized the opportunity as we saw this as the beginning of something exciting and new that would undoubtedly revolutionize what we are doing. And it is still only the tip of the iceberg."

As previously reported, Duran Duran will this month become the first major band to introduce its members as avatars in the Second Life virtual world.

R.E.M. Bringing Back The Rock On New Album

R.E.M. this week will release classic and rare material from its first five years on I.R.S. Records, but bassist Mike Mills says the veteran group remains most interested in moving forward with new music. As previously reported, R.E.M. is getting ready to return to the studio to record the follow-up to 2004's "Around the Sun."

"We'll start rehearsals probably some time in the next month or two," Mills tells Billboard.com. "I think [guitarist] Peter [Buck] and I probably both have a tone of stuff, but we haven't sat down and played it for each other yet. I don't think in terms of directions, but I think this next record might have a little more rock to it. I like 'Around the Sun," but I think, honestly, it turned out a little slower than we intended for it to, just in terms of the overall speed of songs."

In addition to R.E.M.'s early classics, the two-CD compilation "And I Feel Fine" features 11 unreleased tracks, foreshadowing a possible larger rarities boxed set at some point in the future. "We don't have any set plans," Mills says, "but I wouldn't be surprised if one day well into the future one or more of us will probably start digging through the pile and seeing if there's anything worth putting out. And if there is, maybe we'll do a fun box set with all kinds of even weirder stuff than this."

And although five vintage concert cuts are included on "And I Feel Fine," Mills says the prospect of an R.E.M. live album has never held much interest for the band.

"In my personal opinion, there are some great live albums," he explains. "[The Allman Brothers Band's] 'Fillmore East' is something I'll always enjoy. But for R.E.M., my feeling is if you weren't there, you missed it. The music is meant to be heard in conjunction with seeing the band in those situations, and I don't really like separating the two.

"But," he adds, "depending on what we find in the vaults, some more of that [live] stuff could make its way out."

This week, Mills, Buck and vocalist Michael Stipe will reunite with ex-drummer Bill Berry to rehearse for R.E.M.'s induction into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. The foursome will play three songs on Saturday (Sept. 16) at the ceremony in Atlanta, although Mills said no decisions have yet been made on which.

'Covenant' debuts on top of box office

LOS ANGELES - "The Covenant," a tale of supernatural teens trying to destroy each other at an elite boarding school, ascended to the top of the weekend box office with a modest take of $9 million, according to studio estimates.

It was Sony Screen Gems' ninth top-opener this year, but its box office take was much less than the studio's "The Exorcism of Emily Rose," which took in more than $30 million in the same weekend a year ago.

"The summer (movie) season ended on a pretty high note, but the fall season is starting off a little slow," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations. "I don't think anyone expected this weekend to set the world on fire in terms of box office."

"The Covenant" opened in 2,681 theaters, drawing a screen average of $3,357 and knocking off the previous No. 1 movie, Disney's football drama "Invincible." The Mark Wahlberg flick dropped to third place with $5.8 million.

While "The Covenant" ruled among teen moviegoers, older audiences helped "Hollywoodland" grab the No. 2 spot with its $6 million debut.

The Focus Features' drama about the 1959 death of TV's Superman, George Reeves, stars Ben Affleck as Reeves, Diane Lane as his rich mistress and Adrien Brody as a private detective investigating Reeves' death.

It opened in just 1,548 cinemas but posted a per-theater average of $3,881 that was the highest among the top 10 movies.

The third film to crack the top 10 in its debut this weekend was "The Protector," a Weinstein Co. release that landed in the No. 4 spot with $5 million. "Crank," Lionsgate's action tale starring Jason Statham as a hit man, dropped from No. 2 to No. 5 with $4.8 million.

Yari Film Group's "The Illusionist," a drama set in 1900s Vienna and starring Edward Norton as a mysterious magician, continued to expand in its fourth week in theaters, taking in $4.6 million and the No. 6 spot.

Like "Hollywoodland" and Fox Searchlight's "Little Miss Sunshine," "The Illusionist" is an example of how films from smaller or independent-minded studios are finding audiences after a summer of blockbusters.

"Little Miss Sunshine," starring Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette and Steve Carell, dropped three notches to No. 7 this weekend with $4.4 million. Playing in 1,560 locations, the road-trip comedy averaged $2,837 per theater.

Meanwhile, moviegoers on Friday pushed the year's biggest hit, "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," past the $1 billion box office threshold — only the third film to do so behind "Titanic" and "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King."

After 10 weeks in theaters, the Johnny Depp sequel has grossed $416.6 million in the U.S. plus $587.5 million internationally.

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

1. "The Covenant," $9 million.
2. "Hollywoodland," $6 million.
3. "Invincible," $5.8 million.
4. "The Protector," $5 million.
5. "Crank," $4.8 million.
6. "The Illusionist," $4.6 million.
7. "Little Miss Sunshine," $4.4 million.
8. "The Wicker Man," $4.1 million
9. "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," $3 million.
10. "Barnyard: The Original Party Animals," $2.6 million.

U2 Back In The Studio With Rick Rubin, Green Day

U2 is working on material for its next studio album with producer Rick Rubin, according to the band's Web site. The group has been at work on the as-yet-untitled follow-up to 2004's "How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" since last month. While in the studio, U2 will be joined by Green Day to record a cover of Scottish punk band the Skids' "The Saints Are Coming."

Proceeds from the track will benefit Music Rising, an instrument replacement fund co-founded by U2 guitarist the Edge last summer in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

"One year later, the devastation is still fresh in our minds, and we'd like to keep it in yours," Green Day said in a post on its Web site. "New Orleans has always been a special city to us, being a hotbed of music and creativity, and it's hard to believe parts of the Gulf region still remain devastated. We feel that it's important to continue to raise awareness."

Meanwhile, a DVD chronicling U2's Zoo TV tour will arrive Sept. 19 via Island/UME.

'Simpsons' creator Matt Groening says 'let's keep doing it' as show turns 18

LOS ANGELES (AP) - As Bart Simpson skips into his 18th season of TV mischief, fans will be glad to know that creator Matt Groening sees no end in sight for the wayward lad or "The Simpsons."

Groening's reasoning is sound: the show, which returns Sunday night, is fun to make, fun to watch, just earned its 23rd Emmy and is finally jumping to the big screen with a summer 2007 movie about Bart and the rest of Springfield's first family.

"My attitude at this point is, as long as the people who work on the show are having a good time, let's keep doing it," he said. "We've always tried to entertain ourselves and figured that the outside world would be entertained if we were making ourselves laugh."

The key is to keep surprising the audience, which he acknowledged has become tougher because the show has "covered a lot of territory" through the years. It has, in fact, brilliantly lampooned nearly every aspect of American life and culture.

"But there's a really good-natured spirit of competitiveness among the youngest writers on the staff who basically grew up watching the show and have a great memory for everything that's gone before," he said.

The series is seen in more than 70 countries, which along with scads of "Simpsons"-based merchandise has made it a reported billion-dollar cartoon cash cow for Fox parent News Corp.

"The people currently on staff are determined not to be the staff that caused the show to crash and burn. But also to try to top ourselves," Groening said.

"The Simpsons" has been renewed by Fox through its 19th year. The ensemble voice cast includes Nancy Cartwright as Bart, Dan Castellaneta as dad Homer, Julie Kavner as mom Marge, Yeardley Smith as sister Lisa, Harry Shearer as boss man Mr. Burns and Hank Azaria as police Chief Wiggum (Azaria and several others in the cast perform multiple voices).

Last month, it won its ninth Emmy for best animated series and has received best voiceover performance and other honours. Groening called the latest award "a shot in the arm. ... I thought people might be jaded but, no, they weren't."

The program is known for its stellar guest stars and promises not to disappoint this season. In an episode in which Lisa helps Moe the bartender become a poet, she encounters Gore Vidal and Tom Wolfe, voiced by the literary giants themselves.

"They don't usually do cartoons. You don't see them on 'SpongeBob,' " Groening noted, slyly.

Sunday's season opener (8 p.m. EDT) revolves around Homer's brush with mob life and includes Joe Mantegna as Springfield's big boss Fat Tony and Michael Imperioli and Joe Pantoliano of "The Sopranos."

In a Sept. 17 episode with the White Stripes rock band, Bart is injured by a tiger that Lisa rescued and organizes a benefit concert to help pay for an operation on his drumming arm.

The landmark 400th half-hour, due to air next May, is a spoof of Fox's "24" that's titled "24 Minutes" and features the drama's Kiefer Sutherland and Mary Lynn Rajskub as their characters.

"Fox is very happy about this for some reason," said Groening, who at times has clashed with his corporate bosses about stories that carry more potential for controversy than network promotion.

(The riskiest targets, he once said, are those closest to home. The network has whined loudly when it, its properties or its advertisers are needled.)

Groening's schedule is especially full these days. Besides his work on "The Simpsons," he and partner David Cohen are bringing one-time Fox series "Futurama" back to TV with new episodes on Comedy Central beginning in 2008.

"My day started at 7 a.m." Groening said Thursday. "It's crazy. We just run from one room to another. ... People ask, 'Why did you wait so long to do a movie?' and now I have a really good answer. Because there's only 24 hours in a day and you have to sleep sometime."

The movie's timing was a well-kept secret that was sprung on the world when a trailer appeared in theatres last April. The plot remains under wraps although a rough-form snippet was shown last month at Comic-Con, the comic book convention, and web speculation has it that a nuclear accident isolates Springfield.

Groening knows firsthand that "Simpsons" buffs are beyond ready for the film.

"It's really annoying coming on the (studio) lot everyday and having the security guard say, '214 days!' He's such a fan he can't wait for the movie," Groening said. "I don't come in that gate."

But he admits to his own eagerness.

"We've shown episodes of 'The Simpsons' to audiences at colleges, various conventions, and it's so much fun, such a different experience to see it with an appreciative audience," he said. "Part of my motivation for doing the movie is I just want to hear a theatre full of people laughing at the cartoon rather than being at home in the dingy rumpus room."

Cat's Musical Comeback

Yusuf Islam is hoping fans will remember him with a smile. And an open wallet.

The singer-songwriter formerly known as Cat Stevens has announced plans to release An Other Cup, his first pop album in nearly three decades, this November.

The "Wild World" singer has teamed with Atlantic Records and his own Ya label to distribute the album, the release of which will mark the 40th anniversary of the folk singer's first record, I Love My Dog.

"There were one hundred reasons for leaving the music industry back in 1979, not least because I had found what I was looking for spiritually," the 59-year-old said. "Today there are perhaps one hundred and one good reasons why I feel right making music and singing about life in this fragile world again.

"It is important for me to be able to help bridge the cultural gaps others are sometimes frightened to cross."

The singer changed his name in 1977 shortly after a near-death drowning inspired him to convert to Islam and took a new name. His last secular studio album, Back to Earth, was released in 1978. The following year, he announced his retirement from the music biz.

While he has released a handful of religious recordings over the years, it took until 2005 for Islam to issue another mainstream song, "Indian Ocean." Proceeds from the download-only track went to benefit victims of the tsunami that had devastated Southeast Asia. The same year, he played guitar on a Dolly Parton album and recorded a duet with Ronan Keating.

This time around, Islam is returning full-force to his pop roots. The 12-track album includes a cover of the raucous Animals hit "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"; the Islam-penned ditty "Heaven/Where True Love Goes" will be the debut single.

"We are all truly fortunate that Yusuf has chosen this moment to return to contemporary music," Atlantic Chairman Craig Kallman said, describing the first time he heard the music man's comeback album a "chilling" experience.

Atlantic has already announced plans for Islam to promote the album this fall, promising that every precaution will be taken to ensure the singer doesn't inadvertently set into motion any international incidents.

In 2004, his London-based flight to the U.S. was diverted, he was denied entry to the U.S. after his name popped up on a Homeland Security no-fly watch list "for activities potentially related to terrorism." Islam was held for questioning in Maine before his eventual deportation to the U.K.

Arsalan Iftikhar, the national legal director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told Bloomberg News that the his group and the label "don't anticipate any problems in the future when [Islam] arrives."

After all, nobody wants to derail the Peace Train.

Brad Pitt: I'll marry when everyone can

NEW YORK - Brad Pitt, ever the social activist, says he won't be marrying Angelina Jolie until the restrictions on who can marry whom are dropped. "Angie and I will consider tying the knot when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able," the 42-year-old actor reveals in Esquire magazine's October issue, on newsstands Sept. 19.

In the article he reflects on "fifteen things I think everyone should know."

Though Shiloh, the world-famous daughter of Pitt and girlfriend/earth mother Angelina Jolie, hogged much attention upon her birth in May, Pitt says he "cannot imagine life" without adopted children, Maddox, 5, and Zahara, 1.

"They're as much of my blood as any natural born, and I'm theirs," says Pitt. "That's all I can say about it. I can't live without them. So: Anyone considering (adoption), that's my vote."

Pitt, who plays a world traveler in the upcoming drama "Babel," subscribes to a laid-back parenting style.

"I try not to stifle them in any way," he says. "If it's not hurting anyone, I want them to be able to explore. Sometimes that means they're quite rambunctious."

Lucky kids.

"I feel it's really important to have that time to sit and talk to them," he continues. "I really like that last minute before they fade off. And always give them a heads-up before you jerk them out of something. You need to tell them, like, `You have three more minutes.'"

JUDGE'S NEW FILM HAS CASE OF THE MONDAYS

Have you seen the new movie from the creator of "Office Space," "Beavis and Butt-Head" and "King of the Hill"?
No?

Don't sweat it - hardly anyone else has, either.

"Idiocracy," the first movie from writer/director Mike Judge since his 1999 cult hit "Office Space," is the kind of cinematic event comedy geeks have been breathlessly anticipating since it was announced.

"A friend of mine sent me the script about three years ago," says Edward Havens, publisher of the movie site filmjerk.com. "It was one of the most hilarious screenplays I've ever read. I've been waiting and waiting for it to come out."

Finally, last Friday, it did - in a bizarrely stealthy manner, in only seven cities (none of them New York), and with zero fanfare, advertising or publicity of any kind. Unless you knew where to look, you'd never know it existed.

Judge's new comedy revolves around an average guy named Joe (Luke Wilson), who's cryogenically frozen in the present day and wakes up in the year 3001, where he discovers he is the smartest man on Earth.

In an across-the-board swipe at current American culture, the movie depicts out-of-control corporations, stupefyingly dumb TV (the most popular show is "Ow, My Balls!") and a president (Terry Crews of "Everybody Hates Chris") who's a former pro wrestler and porn star.

"There was so much 'biting the hand that feeds you' type of humor," says Havens. "I didn't expect half the stuff to make it in [to the final movie]. But, somehow, he got away with it."

Luckily for Havens, he lives in L.A., one of the cities where the movie is actually playing (the others are Chicago, Austin, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and Toronto). But it was solely due to Havens' film-insider status that he knew about it, because the movie hasn't been publicized.

"There were only, like, 10 people at the screening I went to, including my wife and me," he says. "But everybody was really into it."

Mark Bazer, a Chicago-based humor writer, had a similar experience last weekend. "I saw no ads in the paper, no commercials, no press screenings, nothing," says Bazer, who loved the film. "There were maybe, maybe, 10 people in the theater when I saw it - on the day it was released."

What gives?

A Fox spokesperson, who prefers to remain nameless, would say only that the company doesn't comment on its marketing policies.

Which isn't much consolation to Judge's New York fans.

"It's extremely frustrating," says Todd Jackson, creator of the comedy blog deadfrog.com. "This is a man who hasn't missed yet. Everything he's done has worked, on multiple levels. He's batting 1.000, both comedically and commercially. Why would you question his judgment?"

Of course, there's a history of doubting Judge's judgment; "Office Space" wasn't promoted or publicized, either. When "Office Space" was released on DVD, however, it took off, becoming a much-quoted underground hit.

Critically, "Idiocracy" has received less glowing reviews than "Office Space" - the handful of critics who've weighed in have noted the movie definitely has its flaws - but many have also called it spot-on black comedy.

"Absolutely a satire for our times," Robert Koehler wrote in his Variety review.

"Perhaps," wrote Sheri Linden in the Hollywood Reporter, "the incisive satire cuts too close to home, with its dystopian vision of a world peopled by inarticulate, TV-addicted dolts . . . Perhaps low test-screening results reflect the very dumbing down the film laments."

Or maybe the whole thing is an edgy new viral-marketing ploy, an experimental bid to see if a studio can whip up a cult hit simply by seeming like they're trying to kill it off.

A simpler explanation was proposed by Josh Tyler, editor-in-chief of movie site cinemablend.com.

"It trashes the brand names of major modern-day corporations," he points out. "Starbucks of the future has become a popular chain of full-release, full-service sex huts. Costco takes a hit. Carl's Jr. gets bashed. Taco Bell is the butt of a joke.

"The corporate brand-name bashing in the movie is endless."

But don't look to Judge to sweet-talk Fox out of its decision; the soft-spoken director recently opened up to Esquire about his "Office Space"-like inability to suck up to the suits.

"I just hate doing it so much," he told the magazine. "I'm not able to do it without feeling insulted and stressed out. It's really my own fault. I really don't have any right to complain."

Buckingham Readies One Album, Finishing Another

Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham will release his first solo album in 14 years next month. Due Oct. 3 via Reprise, "Under the Skin" includes two tracks featuring the Fleetwood Mac rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie. The other eight tracks find Buckingham generating all the rhythm simply via his own percussive guitar playing.

"It's something I've been interested in for a long time: trying to distill down the essence of that certain thing I do," the artist tells Billboard.com. "I want to still have it sound like a record, but very much in the spirit of someone sitting and playing guitar."

Buckingham wrote most of the material for "In This Skin" while on the road with Fleetwood Mac in support of its 2003 comeback album, "Say You Will," and looked to his own life for lyrical inspiration. "It gets into a more bare-bones look at what's going on with me after all this time," says Buckingham, who at 57 now has three young children. "I've finally gotten married and am slowly shedding the dysfunctional thing everyone in the band seemed to have emotionally."

The guitarist is also well into work on another new record, which will focus more on electric guitar-driven rock. Label execs initially asked Buckingham to include some of this material on "Under the Skin," but "I feel it has much more integrity by keeping it held back in the way it is. It seemed to be more truthful in terms of what the songs were saying and what I was trying to look at."

Eight songs are complete for the second album, due sometime next year, although Buckingham says he may re-record some of them with a yet-to-be-chosen producer once he finishes a fall tour in support of "Under This Skin." The outing, which is only his second solo trek ever, kicks off Oct. 6 in Atlanta.

Buckingham will be backed on the road by Fleetwood Mac percussionist Taku Hirano and guitarist Neal Haywood, plus guitarist/keyboardist Brett Tuggle. The set list is still coming together, but Buckingham speculates the show will be broken into three sections: "one with me out there by myself, another with the band but you hold a line in terms of the kind of material and the last section, where you'd rock it."

As for the status of Fleetwood Mac, Buckingham says he and the other band members are all up for future touring but unsure if any recording is in the cards.

"It's important that we end up in a place where we are good, as a group of people," he observes, "A place where all the politics are left behind for what's really real. Despite what has gone on, this is a group of people I'll know as well as anyone I'll ever know except my family. I've been through more with them than I've ever been through with my own family [laughs]. I'd love to see that continue. It's a matter of everybody somehow moving toward the center a little bit, and that means me too."

Ellen DeGeneres tapped to host Oscars

LOS ANGELES - Ellen DeGeneres has been tapped to host next year's Oscars, the Academy of Motions Pictures Arts and Sciences said Thursday.

It will be the comedian and TV talker's first time hosting the Oscars show and first appearance on the award show. She has hosted the Primetime Emmy Awards telecast twice and co-hosted it once, and hosted the Grammys twice.

"Ellen DeGeneres was born to host the Academy Awards," said producer Laura Ziskin in a statement. "I can already tell she is going to set the bar very high for herself and therefore for all of us involved in putting on the show. Now all we need is a lot of great movies."

The 79th Annual Academy Awards are scheduled to be broadcast live from the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood on ABC on Sunday, Feb. 25. This year's Oscarcast, in March, was fronted by "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart.

DeGeneres is the host of the syndicated talk show "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," which has won 15 Daytime Emmys since going on the air in 2003.

DeGeneres also starred in the ABC sitcom "Ellen," which aired between 1994 and 1998, and the CBS sitcom, "The Ellen Show," which ran 2001-2002. She has also been a regular in films and has authored several books.

"When Laura Ziskin called, I was thrilled," said DeGeneres in a statement. "There's two things I've always wanted to do in my life. One is to host the Oscars. The second is to get a call from Laura Ziskin. You can imagine that day's diary entry."

Letterman signs on for four more years at CBS

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - From the home office at the Ed Sullivan Theater: David Letterman is staying at CBS for another four years.

Letterman, 59, is close to finalizing a contract extension with CBS that will keep him at the helm of "The Late Show With David Letterman" through the 2009-10 season, sources said. Negotiations on the pact have been underway on and off for months, but sources close to the network and the Letterman camp say the talks went smoothly and there was never any doubt that the Emmy-winning late-night host would extend his tenure at "Late Show," which originates from the famed Ed Sullivan Theater in New York City.

Indeed, sources say that relations between CBS, Letterman and his Worldwide Pants production company have never been better, particularly between Letterman and CBS Corp. chief Leslie Moonves. Moonves has become a semi-regular presence on "Late Show" through the "More With Les" segments, featuring Letterman conversing with Moonves by telephone.

The harmony between Letterman and CBS stands in stark contrast to the situation 4-1/2 years ago, when Letterman was being heavily courted by ABC and reportedly felt under-appreciated at CBS. At the time, Letterman wound up striking a two-year renewal deal that included a series of one-year options, while sources said this time around the deal is a four-year commitment.

Financial details of the new deal were unclear. Letterman already ranks high on the list of television's highest-paid personalities, with an annual salary of about $31.5 million under the 2002 contract agreement. Sources said the new deal keeps Letterman in roughly similar salary territory as the 2002 pact, but that could not be confirmed late Wednesday.

A CBS spokesman declined comment on the deal, as did Letterman's handlers.

Dave Thomas still has his eh game

Hosers Bob & Doug McKenzie refuse to die, or even retire. Not now, not just yet.

Why, eh? “Well,” muses Great White North co-creator and comic Dave Thomas, “all I can give you is my theories, because I don’t really have a definite answer.”

We are talking by phone from his base in Los Angeles. The conversation is initiated because Thomas and pal Rick Moranis did a return gig as the hoser moose in Brother Bear 2, after scoring great reviews for their whimsical work in the 2003 original.

Brother Bear 2, one of Disney’s direct-to-DVD sequels, arrived in stores on Tuesday. It has the McKenzie-like moose, Rutt (Moranis) and Tuke (Thomas), falling in moosifer love with two fine females (fellow Canadians Andrea Martin and Catherine O’Hara).

“We actually liked it,” the 57-year-old Thomas says of working in Brother Bear 2 with the now reclusive Moranis. “Rick is not a big fan of acting any more because of going into the trailer and sitting around for 10 hours for every one hour that you work. But doing voice-overs is quick and clean. And you can do the whole thing in the morning. You can go home and you’re done for the day.

“Plus they let us improvise, which was fun because that’s how we do those characters and they (animators at Walt Disney Studios) recognize that.”

Same thing for the hosers. “As long as the McKenzie Brothers can improvise, Rick and I are comfortable because, when we lock ourselves into a script, it gets uncomfortable. We’ve never found anyone who we think can write for those characters ... except us.”

That brings us back to the why question: Why do Bob & Doug still have a cachet nearly three decades after they were created as Canadian content for SCTV. Why are they so recognizable even when disguised as animated moose in a Disney children’s film?

“I always thought,” says the amiable Thomas, “that in television, when you do direct address to camera, you’re a step ahead of any of the dramatic stuff, when people are turned sideways and talking to each other.

“These characters are like Muppets. They are very non-threatening and very stupid. And stupid characters play really well and travel well in comedy. Smart comedians play to a very small audience, I’ve found.

“And I think the beer definitely made them perennial with college kids.” Specifically, the Bob & Doug movie, Strange Brew, became “a youth college cult film,” Thomas says of their only big-screen effort.

As reported here Aug. 15, CBC-TV is backing a one-hour 24th anniversary Strange Brew special next May. The show will include unseen clips, fresh McKenzie Brothers improv and interviews with cast members, as well as with Demi Moore, who auditioned for the female lead but who was rejected. “So that’s always been a joke with her,” Thomas says.

Thomas and Moranis are also trying to get Warner Home Video, which owns the Strange Brew DVD rights, to wait until next May to put out a planned special edition. “I told them we wanted to synch up in a meaningful way; otherwise we weren’t going to give them any bonus material at all.”

Thomas’ animation company has also signed a development deal with Global TV to produce a flash animation series featuring the McKenzie Brothers, Thomas says.

Meanwhile, there is the Brother Bear movies. And it is no accident that the characters are named Rutt and Tuke, not Bob & Doug.

“We wouldn’t give Disney the McKenzie Brothers,” Thomas says. “We said: ‘Our voices sound similar to the McKenzie Brothers, so you’ll get what you want. But we don’t want the words McKenzie Brothers appearing anywhere in the Disney contract, or otherwise you’ll own it. We own the characters and we didn’t want to give them away. So they couldn’t use, ‘Take off,’ or any of our catch phrases.”

Thomas and Moranis are aware of how rigorously Disney lawyers protect their alleged character rights. The Winnie the Pooh lawsuits are a good lesson.

“If you give a big company like Disney a legal toehold to the characters at all, they’ve got you,” Thomas says.

Regardless, the Disney filmmakers and much of the audience for the Brother Bear series know who Thomas and Moranis are channeling into their characters. And that has kept the McKenzie Brothers from fading away.

“The weird thing about it is that, every time Rick and I thought these characters were dead, somebody else would want to do it and keep them alive.”

New 'Grey's Anatomy' season hints

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The doctors were in, as cast and crew of the hot TV medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" converged Tuesday night for a celebration of the DVD release of the show's second-season episodes.

The cast was generally tightlipped about third-season plot developments, but word did slip that the Meredith-Derek-Addy love triangle would finally be resolved, at least to some degree.

"Well, I think that you do see it, there is definitely a resolution, otherwise it becomes a really strange isosceles triangle," Kate Walsh (Dr. Addison Shepherd) told AP Television.

"So you see a resolution to the love triangle and you see all of the characters on their own a little more, myself included," she added. "The relationship becomes in its proper proportion. You see them who they are as a person and who they are professionally in a whole new and different way."

There was also talk of some casting news: Diahann Carroll and Richard Roundtree will appear in recurring roles as the parents of Dr. Preston Burke (Isaiah Washington)

"Grey's Anatomy: The Complete Second Season - Uncut," which also includes about five hours of extras, hits stores Sept. 12. The show begins its third season on its new day, Thursday, Sept. 21 on ABC.

Dylan Drops Danity, Squashes Simpson

Just a week ago, Diddy's pre-fab pop group Danity Kane scored the surprise number one album and Paris Hilton landed a Top 10 debut. But the times are a changin'.

For the first time in 30 years, grizzled vet Bob Dylan is perched atop the album chart with his latest album, Modern Times.

For the week ended Sunday, Modern Times sold 192,000 copies, per Nielsen SoundScan--Dylan's biggest sales week in the 15-year SoundScan era and his first number one album since 1976's Desire.

The three-decade interlude between chart-toppers is a Billboard record. Rod Stewart had a 25-year gap between number ones, Santana and the Isley Brothers both had 28-year spans, and Barry Manilow went 29 years between number ones. (Among defunct acts, the Beatles went 22 years and Elvis Presley 29 years between chart-toppers.)

Modern Times also topped the charts in Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Ireland, Norway and Switzerland, while opening at number two in Germany, Austria and Sweden. In the U.K., the disc gave Dylan a personal single-week sales record with 55,000 copies at number three.

Helping propel sales with the kids, the 65-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Famer appears in a new iPod commercial performing the album track "Someday Baby." His "When the Deal Goes Down" forms the soundtrack to a short film by Academy Award-nominated Capote director Bennett Miller and starring Scarlett Johansson. The clip premiered on AOL and has popped up on YouTube and other video-streaming sites.

Dylan, who kicks off a North American tour next month, owns eight Grammys, an Oscar and Golden Globe for "Things Have Changed," and a Peabody Award. He has sold more than 100 million albums in a career that's lasted nearly half a century.

Dylan's arrival dropped Danity Kane down a spot to number two with 117,000 copies. Diddy's Making the Band 3 babes sold enough to hold off new releases by Young Dro and Jessica Simpson.

Rap newbie Young Dro, signed to T.I.'s Grand Hustle label, lit up the three spot selling nearly 104,000 copies of Best Thang Smokin'. The projects-raised rapper scored a massive hit this summer with "Shoulder Lean," which picked up traction as a surprise ringtone smash, selling more than 500,000 units.

Many pundits had considered Simpson's A Public Affair a lock for number one before vocal problems forced her to cancel several promotional appearances last week. The album, her first since her Newlyweds days (yes, it's been that long), sold 101,000 copies to open at number five. Simpson still hasn't landed a number one album--2001's Irresistible opened at six and 2003's In This Skin debuted at 10 and peaked at number two. (By comparison, sister Ashlee already topped the charts with both of her albums, 2004's Autobiography and 2005's I Am Me.)

A pair of veteran rap acts wrapped up the final Top 10 bows. Wu-Tang Clan rapper Method Man sold 62,000 copies of 4:21...The Day After to open at eight, and the Roots sold 61,000 copies of Game Theory at nine.

Rounding out the Top 10 were holdovers: Christina Aguilera's Back to Basics at four, Cheetah Girls 2 soundtrack at five and OutKast's Idlewild at seven. Nickelback's All the Right Reasons reentered in the 10 spot after dropping to 12 last week.

In what was a very active sales week, rapper Too Short's Blow the Whistle sold 40,000 to open at 14. With fewer than 750 copies separating the three discs, Ray LaMontagne's Till the Sun Turns Back, Crossfade's Falling Away and Hatebreed's Supremacy followed at 28, 30 and 31, respectively.

Other noteworthy debuts included the Toby Keith-led Broken Bridges soundtrack at 36, reggaeton superstar Tego Calderon's Underdog/El Subestimado at 43, Pete Yorn's Nightcrawler at 50, Paula DeAnda's self-titled debut at 54, Beenie Man's Undisputed at 65 and the country-goes-Christian compilation Three Wooden Crosses at 86.

Here's a recap of the Top 10 albums:

1. Modern Times, Bob Dylan
2. Danity Kane, Danity Kane
3. Best Thang Smokin', Young Dro
4. Back to Basics, Christina Aguilera
5. A Public Affair, Jessica Simpson
6. Cheetah Girls 2 soundtrack, various
7. Idlewild, OutKast
8. 4:21...The Day After, Method Man
9. Game Theory, The Roots
10. All the Right Reasons, Nickelback

Gore's "Truth" DVD boasts earth-friendly package

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Mother Nature won't be harmed when former Vice President Al Gore's hit global-warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" comes out on DVD November 21.

The DVD packaging consists entirely of waste products that have been recycled, including paper, inks and coatings formulated to emit virtually no volatile organic compounds into the atmosphere. That means no plastics and no laminates.

"An Inconvenient Truth," a Paramount release directed by David Guggenheim, grossed $22.7 million in U.S. theaters, a huge amount for a documentary.

"I'm excited about the documentary's release on DVD," Gore said in an interview. "The DVD is a vital way for us to continue the conversation about global warming with even more Americans. As more and more people understand what's at stake, they become a part of the solution, and share both in the challenges and opportunities presented by the climate crises."

The DVD will feature a new introduction by Gore, with updates on global temperatures, population, hurricanes, projections of soil moisture and more. Also included: the Melissa Etheridge music video "I Need to Wake Up," and audio commentaries from Guggenheim and producers Lawrence Bender, Scott Burns, Laurie David and Lesley Chilcott.

A portion of the proceeds from the sale of each DVD will be donated to Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan environmental group.

RICKY LOSING HIS HUMOR

British funnyman Ricky Gervais is done kidding around.

Gervais, 45, creator of the TV comedies "The Office" and "Extras," is vowing that his next project will be a television drama.

"We're not leaving comedy behind, but we'd like to have a go at something more dramatic," Gervais said Monday at an event held in the U.K. to promote the second season of "Extras."

The six-episode season, which commenced production in mid-July, is expected to premiere on HBO next year.

According to the U.K. newspaper The Guardian, Gervais has been inspired by the dramatic series he's seen on American TV.

"All the things we like at the moment are coming out of America, things like 'The Sopranos' and '24' and 'The Wire' and 'The Shield' - all these things that we [in the U.K.] just can't do or don't do or anything close to it," Gervais said.

"They're innovative, audacious, they're done brilliantly."

Gervais' producing partner, Stephen Merchant, said their drama would likely be a co-production with an American company. "Extras" is co-produced by HBO and the BBC.

In the upcoming new season of "Extras," Gervais' character, Andy Millman, finally has his script accepted for production, according to The Guardian.

Merchant returns in the role of Millman's ineffective agent.

Among the real-life stars appearing on "Extras" this season are David Bowie, Orlando Bloom, Robert Lindsay, Ian McKellan and Daniel Radcliffe.

Zach Braff Talks Scrubs and Fletch

Even though this could be the last season of "Scrubs," Zach Braff and the cast are completely committed to making this the best year of the smash NBC comedy yet.

"We just finished the first episode and there's lots of prosthetic make-up in the first episode. Last year, we sort of got really silly and random, and we call it the stoner humor. We did a little more of that, and the fans loved it. We had our best ratings ever. The feeling is this will probably be the last year, so we're all just sort of going for it. The writing is just so surreal and bizarre and wacky, and we're going to give the fans what they want this year," Braff said while promoting his new film, The Last Kiss.

In addition to the quirky humor of the show, there will be a musical episode that Braff is really excited about.

"Everyone sings. I think there's a patient with dementia and anytime that anyone's in the ICU, we see the ICU through this patient's eyes, and everyone's singing as though they're in a musical… They're getting guys who write musicals to come in and write the music, and then the writers will write the lyrics. Part of it will be spoofing the musical, in and of itself, so I'm sure there will be a whole lot of down on one knee, out of breath, with your arms in the air."

As far as guest appearances go, Braff is really hoping to get a former "Arrested Development" character on.

"The one person I want right now is David Cross. I wanted David Cross to come on as Tobias Funke. I'm trying to broker that deal, with Mitch's (Mitchell Hurwitz) approval. I want David to come on as Tobias… I love that character, and the fact that character is over for good, I want him to at least have one more little life."

Besides working on "Scrubs", Braff has been rumored to play Fletch in Fletch Won, which predates the first seven books in the series, and follows the early days of the title character's journalism career as a junior reporter in his 20's working at the News-Tribune.

"I don't know. Bill Lawrence is definitely writing and directing 'Fletch,' and there's a good chance I'll do it. I've just got to talk to Uncle Harvey…I was the one who told Harvey he should hire Bill. Bill's a huge Fletch fan. The books aren't as wacky and silly as the Chevy Chase movies were, so there was talk for awhile of going back to the books and not having that level of comedy in them, and Bill and I both disagreed.

"That's what made the movie so great. It's one of the most quoted movies ever, especially by guys. Why would you not tap back into what's funny about that? Definitely go back to the books 'cause the books are brilliant, but we want to still make it a comedy. Bill uses the great analogy of 'Beverly Hills Cop.' He's like, 'If you look at 'Beverly Hills Cop,' some people think it's one of the funniest comedies ever, but it's an action movie with great adventure and real stakes,' and he wants to do that with 'Fletch.' The books have real stakes and real action in them, but they also have some of the funniest, witty dialogue ever written."

Right now, Braff isn't writing any of his own material, but he is thinking about directing again very soon.

"I did an adaptation, that I'm working on, of a movie called 'Open Hearts,' that I'm probably going to direct next year. It's a Danish movie. And, that's what I'm doing now."

Paramount will release The Last Kiss on Friday, September 15.

No State Funeral for Croc Hunter

As the Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin made a name for himself around the world. But at the end of the day, he was just an "ordinary bloke."

In the first public remarks from Irwin's family since his death on Monday, his father, Bob Irwin, said the family would probably decline the Australian government's offer of a state funeral for his son because Irwin would not have wanted the fuss of such a formal proceeding.

"The state funeral would be refused because he's an ordinary guy, he's just an ordinary bloke," the elder Irwin said at a press conference at Australia Zoo Wednesday.

"He wants to be remembered as an ordinary bloke."

Irwin, 44, was killed after he was hit in the chest by a stingray's barb Monday while filming an underwater documentary on the Great Barrier Reef.

Video footage of the TV star's last moments reportedly showed him yanking the poisonous barb from his chest before he lost consciousness.

Officials who reviewed the footage as part of the investigation into Irwin's death said there was no evidence he had antagonized the stingray in order to make it lash out.

Dressed in his son's signature khaki shorts and shirt, Bob Irwin offered emotional recollections of the man he called "my best mate ever."

"I'm a lucky, lucky guy that I've had the opportunity to have a son like Steve," he told reporters.

"Steve and I weren't like father and son. We never were. We were good mates."

Irwin's body was flown from Cairns to the Sunshine Coast by charter plane on Tuesday. Funeral arrangements will most likely not be announced for several days, according to Irwin's friend and manager, John Stainton, who was with him at the time of his death.

Mourners continued to flock to the zoo by the thousands Wednesday, adding flowers and written messages to a makeshift memorial to Irwin at the gate.

Irwin's widow, Terri Irwin, has yet to speak publicly about her husband's death. However, on Tuesday, she used the internal intercom service at Australia Zoo to thank staffers for their support.

"She was really choked up. She basically said how grateful she was for the support from all the staff," Michael Hornby, the executive manager of Irwin's charity, Wildlife Warriors, told the Sydney Morning Herald.

"She was extremely upset and did not talk for long. But she wanted to thank staff for helping the family hold themselves together; and the fact that she was thinking of other people at such a distressing time is simply amazing."

Irwin's father vowed that he would help Terri continue his son's work at Australia Zoo until his children, eight-year-old Bindi and two-year-old Bob, were old enough to take over some of the responsibility.

"Steve will want his work carried on," he said.

Barenaked Ladies prep album, set tour plans

Canadian alt-pop outfit Barenaked Ladies, last heard from on the 2004 seasonal set "Barenaked for the Holidays," will offer up a new album next week, and are rolling out concert dates to support the set.

Dubbed "Barenaked Ladies Are Me," the new disc is due out Sept. 12, and is the inaugural release on the band's newly formed label, Desperation Records. The collection will be available as a 13-track, hard-copy CD, as well as in several different digital configurations.

Apple's iTunes Music Store will offer one version of the set that will include the original 13-song tracklist plus two bonus cuts, and a second, deluxe-edition configuration with 27 songs. The group also plans to sell the album in the form of a USB flash-memory stick that will house all of the new songs as well as "special bonus content," according to the band's MySpace webpage.

"Barenaked Ladies Are Me" features the lead-off single "Easy." That song, as well as three others--"Wind It up," "Bank Job" and "Rule the World with Love"--are currently available for purchase from the band's website in the form of multi-track digital files that fans can tinker with.

"It is our hope that you will remix, recreate, re-edit, re-configure and realize what you will with these parts in coming up with your own versions," the group wrote in a message posted at the site.

On Oct. 21, BNL will launch a US roadtrip that will run into late December. Only a handful of confirmed shows were available at press time. Details are included below.

October 2006
21 - Uncasville, CT - Mohegan Sun Casino
23 - Manchester, NH - Verizon Wireless Arena
28 - Cleveland, OH - Wolstein Center
29 - Columbus, OH - Schottenstein Center

November 2006
11 - Austin, TX - Backyard
14 - Omaha, NE - Qwest Center

December 2006
2 - Phoenix, AZ - Dodge Theatre

R.E.M. Plots One-Off Berry Reunion, New Album

R.E.M. will perform three songs with original drummer Bill Berry to celebrate its induction into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, to be held Sept. 16 in Atlanta. Berry has only played three times with his longtime colleagues since exiting the band in 1997, most prominently at the October 2005 wedding of R.E.M. guitar tech Dewitt Burton.

At that performance, the foursome played a seven-song set of classic early material, including "Sitting Still," "Radio Free Europe" and "Wolves, Lower." In April, Berry joined vocalist Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck and bassist Mike Mills to perform R.E.M.'s "Country Feedback" at an Athens, Ga., show by Buck's side band, the Minus 5.

While the group rehearses for the Hall of Fame ceremony, it is "considering recording something for a yet-to-be-announced charitable project," according to a post from manager Bertis Downs on R.E.M.'s Web site.

Following the induction, R.E.M. will end a year-long hiatus and hit the studio to begin work on the follow-up to 2004's critically maligned "Around the Sun." That album debuted at No. 13 on The Billboard 200.

In the meantime, the band's first five years will be celebrated with the CD/DVD package "And I Feel Fine," due Sept. 12 via I.R.S./Capitol. The collection includes the first authorized release of a number of long-bootlegged rare tracks.

Apple May Add Movies to iTunes Store Next Week

Techie blogs and other websites spread the word Monday that Apple CEO Steve Jobs is expected to announce on Sept. 12 that Apple's iTunes Music Store will begin selling a feature film download service, permitting users to pay $9.99 for a movie that can be viewed on a new wider-screen iPod or, via a new wireless video streaming device, on a television set. Several websites indicated that Apple is still testing its next-generation video iPods and "Airport Express" and that it may be several weeks or even months before they are ready to hit the market.

New Princess Di book coming out Sept. 12

NEW YORK - It was billed by its publisher as the "must-read" book for the fall — "a shattering, provocative and mesmerizing true story" so momentous that booksellers were urged to order copies without knowing what they would receive.

Now, the secret is out: Publisher William Morrow confirmed Tuesday to The Associated Press that the mystery work is Paul Burrell's "The Way We Were," the latest tell-all about Princess Diana by her former butler, who also wrote the 2003 best seller, "A Royal Duty."

Was it worth the suspense?

"I feel hoodwinked," says Mark LaFramboise, a buyer for Politics & Prose, an independent store based in Washington, D.C. LaFramboise said he ordered 10-12 copies. "This is Washington and we thought it might have been a relevant political book. But this is nothing but publicity gimmickry. They should be ashamed of themselves."

"I think it's going to be a big book, although `shattering,' I don't know about that," says Edward Ash-Milby, biography buyer for Barnes & Noble Inc. "I think there's interest in anyone close to the inner circle, and he was as close to her as anyone."

Lisa Gallagher, Morrow's senior vice president, was not immediately available for comment.

According to a statement issued Tuesday by Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins, "The Way We Were" takes "the reader into the lively day-to-day life at Kensington Palace and includes, for the first time ever, a uniquely personal record of that time."

"With previously unseen photographs of the interiors, Burrell takes the reader from room to room, and from memory to memory, in a remarkably candid narrative that only he could tell," the statement said.

Burrell's book, a "follow-up" to "A Royal Duty," goes on sale Sept. 12 with an announced first printing of 300,000.

The biggest news so far came out in an excerpt published last weekend in London's Daily Mail. Burrell writes that Princess Diana had no plans to marry her companion, Dodi Fayed, who also died in the 1997 Paris car crash along with their driver, Henri Paul. Just days before the fatal accident, Dodi had reportedly given Diana a gold Bulgari ring.

"She made it clear this was not an engagement ring. It was nothing more than an addition to her collection of costume jewelry," he writes. "She said how romantic he had been and giggled with relief that the ring had not been more significant. `Pheeeew!' She gave an exaggerated sigh, suggesting she was happy and that engagement was the furthest thing from her mind."

Burrell also wrote in "A Royal Duty" that Diana was not serious about Dodi, observing that "All the princess' closest friends know the identity of the only man with whom she had enjoyed a happy, long-term relationship since her divorce. And it was not Dodi al Fayed." The man's name was not revealed.

Hoping to build interest in a book, publishers occasionally ask sellers to "order blind," although usually at least some information is given. Stores, for instance, will be told that a new Oprah Winfrey pick is upcoming without knowing the actual selection.

"But Oprah is a known commodity," LaFramboise of Politics & Prose said. "You know you're going to sell a certain number of books."

Ed Conklin, a manager for Dutton's Brentwood Bookstore in Beverly Hills, Calif., said he had only ordered a few copies of the Burrell book and called the Morrow campaign "a ploy on the publisher's part to generate a buzz and artificially create a demand."

"You hope that if it does take off, you can get more books quickly enough to cover yourself," Conklin says. "But in this case, I don't think we're going to need to bother."

AFI Likes "Singin' in the Rain"

Those list-loving folks at the American Film Institute are hap-hap-happy again.

Singin' in the Rain, the 1952 MGM tuner codirected by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly and starring Kelly alongside Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds, tops the list of 25 greatest movie musicals unveiled by the AFI Sunday.

Although it wasn't recognized as such at the time--it failed to snag an Oscar nomination for Best Picture or even the Golden Globe for Best Musical or Comedy-- Singin' in the Rain has become one of Hollywood's most adored films. The behind-the-scenes story of the transition from silent pictures to talkies edged out the more-decorated West Side Story, which received the Oscar for Best Picture in 1961.

Rounding out the top 10: The Wizard of Oz (1939); The Sound of Music (1965); Cabaret (1972); Mary Poppins (1964); A Star Is Born (1954); My Fair Lady (1964); An American in Paris (1951); and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944).

Judy Garland was the most represented female star on the list, landing a trio of musicals in the top 10 (The Wizard of Oz, A Star Is Born and Meet Me in St. Louis) to edge out Julie Andrews (The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins).

Kelly had three films make the cut (Singin', An American in Paris and On The Town), while hoofing rival Fred Astaire scored with Top Hat (1935) at 15 and The Band Wagon (1953) at 17. His Top Hat costar and frequent leading lady Ginger Rogers also had two films on the list--she was among the ensemble in 1933's 42nd Street, which ranked at 13.

The movie musical has regularly been pronounced dead since its heyday in the '50s and '60s, but a half-dozen of AFI's Top 25 were released after 1970.

Bob Fosse was responsible for three of them: Cabaret, 2002's Oscar-winning Chicago (based on the Fosse-choreographed stage musical) and 1979's All That Jazz.

Meanwhile, 1978's Grease was the word at 20, while Beauty and the Beast was the only 'toon to make the rundown. The Disney classic, which was later adapted into a hit Broadway show, is the only animated feature to be nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award; it ranked 22nd on the AFI list.

Finally, Baz Luhrmann's epic 2001 tragicomedy Moulin Rouge! came in at 25. For better or worse, the musical, showcasing the vocal talents of Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor, sparked a renewed interest in the musical genre, paving the way for the big-screen versions of Chicago, The Producers, Rent and the forthcoming Hairspray and Sweeney Todd, among others.

The latest AFI list was winnowed down by a jury of 500 directors, screenwriters, actors, editors, composers, critics and historians solicited by the prestigious nonprofit organization dedicated to celebrating and preserving cinema. Voters were asked to submit their choices from a ballot of 250 nominated films and were allowed to write in any movies they felt had been slighted.

The honorees were revealed in a special presentation Sunday night at the Hollywood Bowl, during which director John Mauceri and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra performed excerpts of the winning musicals accompanied by projections of scenes of some of those films' most iconic moments.

The Greatest Movie Musicals list is considered a sidebar to AFI's 100 Years. . . series. Launched eight years ago, it has included such programs as AFI's 100 Stars, 100 Laughs, 100 Thrills, 100 Passions, and 100 Songs among others.

Here's the complete list of the AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals:

1. Singin' in the Rain (1952), MGM
2. West Side Story (1961), United Artists
3. The Wizard of Oz (1939), MGM
4. The Sound of Music (1965), 20th Century Fox
5. Cabaret (1972) Allied Artists
6. Mary Poppins (1964), Disney
7. A Star Is Born (1954), Warner Bros.
8. My Fair Lady (1964), Warner Bros.
9. An American In Paris (1951), MGM
10. Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), MGM
11. The King and I (1956), 20th Century Fox
12. Chicago (2002), Miramax
13. 42nd Street (1933), Warner Bros.
14. All That Jazz (2002), Miramax
15. Top Hat (1935), RKO
16. Funny Girl (1968), Columbia
17. The Band Wagon (1953), MGM
18. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Warner Bros.
19. On the Town (1949), MiraMGM
20. Grease (1978), Paramount
21. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), MGM
22. Beauty and the Beast (1991), Disney
23. Guys and Dolls (1955), MGM
24. Show Boat (1936), Universal
25. Moulin Rouge! (2001), 20th Century Fox

Couric makes `CBS Evening News' debut

NEW YORK - After Katie Couric was introduced on her first night as "CBS Evening News" anchor by a Walter Cronkite voiceover, she delivered a fast-moving newscast that the legendary newsman might have found unrecognizable.

"Hi, everyone," she began. "I'm very happy to be with you tonight."

The rest of Tuesday's show featured outsiders delivering commentary, the first public pictures of Suri Cruise, a lengthy exclusive on the Taliban and Couric asking viewers for help in crafting a distinctive signoff.

At the end of her historic show as the first female face of network news, she was leaning up against the edge of her anchor desk, laughing at something said to her offscreen.

Couric's long-awaited debut capped a tumultuous period for the evening news. For more than two decades, the network news was dominated by Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and Dan Rather. Now, Couric will compete against Brian Williams at top-rated NBC and Charles Gibson at ABC.

She arrived at CBS after 15 years as NBC's "Today" show host, where she was accustomed to always being first in the ratings. The "CBS Evening News" is third, but Couric has said that could be liberating, offering a chance to try new things in a format she has called formulaic.

That willingness was apparent even before the first commercial break — this was not a stentorian reading off dozens of news headlines.

On a relatively slow news day, CBS opened with chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan being escorted by a Taliban commander to view soldiers displaying their weapons less than 10 miles from a U.S. base.

Logan, dressed in black with only part of her face visible, was heard asking one of her guides, "Am I allowed to smile?"

That story segued into a conventional report by White House correspondent Jim Axelrod on a speech given by President Bush on the terrorist threat.

Incorporating her "Today" interviewing experience, Couric then brought New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman into the studio for a brief discussion on the terrorist threat.

"Things seemed to be going well in Afghanistan," she said. "What happened? Why is it unraveling now?"

In almost breathless fashion, she zipped through a handful of headlines: a corporate turnover at Ford, mourning over the killed "crocodile hunter" — all before the first commercial.

Couric also introduced "Free Speech," a segment that will periodically feature outsiders giving a brief commentary. Morgan Spurlock, who subsisted on McDonald's for 30 days in his documentary "Supersize Me," was first up, talking about how the nation's political divide is exaggerated by the media. Couric promised that Rush Limbaugh would be featured Thursday.

The rest of the broadcast was dominated by longer features on drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico and high school students who draw portraits of poor orphans across the world. Couric also showed the first pictures of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' new baby, Suri.

She made only one slip, mispronouncing "soil" as "sole" at one point but quickly correcting herself.

Couric's only real nod to her newbie status came at the end, with a joking report on her difficulties coming up with a signoff. She showed clips of Cronkite, Chet Huntley, Dan Rather, Ted Baxter and even fictitious movie anchorman Ron Burgundy giving their final words, then invited viewers to submit suggestions via the CBS News web site.

"Thank you so much for watching," she said, "and I hope to see you tomorrow night."

As the end credits rolled, Couric, wearing a white jacket over a black shirt and skirt, was leaning against the edge of her desk, showing her famous legs.

She's the first woman hired to anchor one of the three network nightly newscasts on her own. Predecessors Barbara Walters, Connie Chung and Elizabeth Vargas only got their jobs in partnership with men.

Couric also made her initial posting Tuesday on her new blog, "Couric & Co.," run by CBS News. She promised to swap stories, offer opinions and ask questions of viewers. "In the little village that is CBS News, you might consider `Couric & Co.' the coffee house on the corner, where something is always brewing," she wrote.

When she was considering leaving the familiar environs of NBC, Couric wrote that a friend told her: "A boat is always safe in the harbor. But it's not what it was built for."

"Hopefully," she wrote, "we won't all end up like Gilligan."

'Crocodile Hunter' took out barb on tape

BEERWAH, Australia - Steve Irwin pulled a poisonous stingray barb from his chest in his dying moments, his longtime manager said Tuesday, after watching videotape of the attack that killed the popular "Crocodile Hunter."

Irwin's body was returned home to Beerwah, a hamlet in southeastern Queensland on the fringe of the Outback where he lived with his wife and two young children. Irwin turned a modest reptile park opened by his parents into Australia Zoo, a wildlife reserve that has become an international tourist attraction.

Terri Irwin, in her first public comment since her husband's death, thanked the staff of his zoo in a brief message late Tuesday, said spokesman Michael Hornby.

"She was very choked up. It was a very frail comment," Hornby told The Associated Press Wednesday. "But she wanted to say to the staff how grateful she was for their support and how much it meant to her." Details weren't made public.

Hundreds placed bouquets and handwritten notes at an ad hoc shrine to the popular 44-year-old naturalist outside the park, and other tributes flowed in from Canberra to Hollywood.

The dramatic details of Irwin's death Monday as he was shooting a program on the Great Barrier Reef were disclosed by John Stainton, his manager and close friend. He said he had viewed the videotape showing the TV star pulling the poisonous stingray barb from his chest.

"It shows that Steve came over the top of the ray and the tail came up, and spiked him here (in the chest), and he pulled it out, and the next minute he's gone," Stainton told reporters in Cairns, the nearest city to tiny Batt Reef off Australia's far northeast coast where the accident happened.

Stainton said the video was "shocking."

"It's a very hard thing to watch, because you are actually witnessing somebody die, and it's terrible," he said.

The tape was not released to the public. Queensland state police took possession of a copy for a coroner's investigation.

Stainton said the tape should be destroyed when the coroner is finished.

"I would never want that tape shown. I mean, it should be destroyed," he said on CNN's "Larry King Live."

Stainton estimated Irwin's distance from the stingray when the attack happened at about three feet.

State police Superintendent Michael Keating said Irwin was "interacting" with the stingray when it flicked its tail and speared his chest with the bone-hard serrated spine it bore — the normally placid animal's main defense mechanism.

"There is no evidence Mr. Irwin was threatening or intimidating the stingray," Keating said, addressing speculation that a man who became famous by leaping on crocodiles and snatching up snakes must have been too close for the animal's comfort.

Irwin's boundless energy and daredevil antics around deadly beasts made him a household name as the Discovery Channel's "The Crocodile Hunter," with a reported audience of more than 200 million.

Australia's leaders interrupted Parliament's normal business to eulogize Irwin.

"He was a genuine, one-off, remarkable Australian individual and I am distressed at his death," Prime Minister John Howard said.

His opposition counterpart, Kim Beazley, said: "He was not only a great Aussie bloke, he was determined to instill his passion for the environment and its inhabitants in everybody he met."

Friend and Oscar-winner Russell Crowe said from New York: "He was and remains the ultimate wildlife warrior."

The U.S. Embassy issued a statement saying Irwin was an unofficial Australian ambassador to the United States.

"With his humor and irrepressible sense of adventure, he represented those things our citizens find most appealing about Australia and its wonderful way of life," it said.

Hundreds of people journeyed Tuesday to Australia Zoo to remember Irwin.

Tia Koivisto drove her daughter Ella, 3, for more than an hour from the Queensland capital of Brisbane to lay a floral tribute.

"I was quite moved by what happened, I felt I had to come up and pay my respects," Koivisto said.

People thronged around the entrance of the park, near a billboard featuring Irwin holding a crocodile in his arms and his catch phrase, "Crikey!"

"We're all devastated," said Gail Gipp, the park's hospital wildlife manager. "It is very surreal at the moment. We're determined to carry on what he would have wanted."

There was no condolence book, but mourners lined up to sign messages onto khaki work shirts — another Irwin trademark — that were draped outside the gate. Someone placed flowers in the mouth of a wooden crocodile nearby.

"Mate, you made the world a better place," read one poster left at the gate. "Steve, our hero, our legend, our wildlife warrior," read another.

"I thought you were immortal. How I wish that was true," said a third.

Zoo spokesman Peter Lang said Irwin's wife, Terri, of Eugene, Ore., daughter Bindi, 8, and son Bob, 2, arrived Monday night from the island state of Tasmania, where they had been vacationing when Irwin was killed.

The family hasn't spoken about Irwin's funeral plans, although Queensland Premier Peter Beattie offered a state funeral.

"We'll never replace Steve," said Hornby, head of the Wildlife Warriors, one of the Irwin family's conservation charities. "He was part of the family, like he came out of the television set and into your living room. That's why there's been such an outpouring of emotion here and around the world. Everybody thought they knew him."

Meanwhile, Animal Planet said it had given no thought to taking "The Crocodile Hunter" off the air, said Maureen Smith, the network's executive vice president and general manager.

"Steve's whole mission in life was to educate and inspire the public to take care of animals in the world that we share," she said. "To continue is the best way to get that message out."

Irwin was filming a new series, "Ocean's Deadliest Predators," for Animal Planet. Smith said she wasn't aware whether enough filming had been done for anything to make it on the air.

Klosterman hailed as top pop critic

NEW YORK (AP) - Chuck Klosterman is flabbergasted that some consider him - like many of his subjects - a celebrity.

"I haven't sold that many books! I'm living in a very normal apartment! I don't own a helicopter!" exclaims the writer during an interview at said apartment. The spare Manhattan space, highlighted by a big-screen TV tuned to ESPN Classic and a large, framed poster of Radiohead's Kid A, does indeed meet the standards of "normal."

But by delving into The Real World and Britney Spears with as much intellectual gusto as a philosophy professor examining Wittgenstein, Klosterman has emerged as one of the country's most distinctive pop critics.

Though he has his detractors (like Gawker.com, which has made him a target), Klosterman has inspired over-the-top praise that often includes "voice of a generation" superlatives.

"I'm always interested in the question of why does something become big," he says.

So, why has Klosterman (in a relative sense) become big? What generational vein has he tapped?

"That's the thing!" he responds. "Everyone knows that - no one knows what it is!"

Now releasing his fourth book, a collection entitled Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas, the author of Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs is still more accustomed to being on the other side of a reporter's tape recorder.

Klosterman, 34, grew up in Wyndmere, N.D. and cut his teeth for eight years as a journalist in Fargo and in Akron, Ohio before moving to New York in 2002 after the success of his first book, Fargo Rock City.

Subtitled A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota, the memoir chronicled what it was like growing up in the Midwest with a love for Guns N' Roses. It found rave reviews and was aided by a thumbs-up from David Byrne of the Talking Heads, who said the book was "about how music feels, how media-saturated culture feels, and how it's all in the details."

In New York, Klosterman soon became ubiquitous in magazines. Until earlier this year he was a senior writer at Spin, he maintains a column at Esquire, and regularly contributes to the New York Times Magazine and ESPN.com.

It was his second book, though, that made his name. Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, a collection of essays and a self-described "low-culture manifesto" has spent seven weeks on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list - including this week, two years after the book's release.

Cocoa Puffs even made a cameo as a book Seth Cohen is seen reading on The O.C. - Klosterman's thoughts on pop culture had officially become part of pop culture.

A sampling of those musings includes how John Cusack has ruined the romantic perspective of a generation of women, why Billy Joel rocks, and the reality of Saved By the Bell.

The book's introduction offered Klosterman's overarching, sociological approach: "In and of itself, nothing really matters. What matters is that nothing is ever 'in and of itself.' "

"If you're reading Ulysses or watching Saved by the Bell, you're trying to find meaning," says Klosterman. "I don't know why you can't do that in the present tense."

Klosterman says Cocoa Puffs will be a much more interesting book 25 years from now, when it will be a period piece, a view of what people were actually thinking about in the present tense at the turn of the 21st century.

Klosterman took to the road for his next book, Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story, where he chronicled his trip to the places many rock stars died. His goal: to figure out "why the greatest career move any musician can make is to stop breathing."

Chuck Klosterman IV is a collection of mostly magazine profiles and opinionated columns. His populist approach is reflected in a column he wrote in 2002 after the deaths of Dee Dee Ramone (of the Ramones) and Robbin Crosby (of Ratt).

Klosterman sees an unfair balance to how Ramone's death received far more attention than Crosby's ("the first major hair-metal artist from the Reagan years to die from AIDS"). He concludes that the "concept of good taste" is nothing more than "a subjective device used to create gaps in the intellectual class structure."

"My view has always been there are lots of people in America that want to think critically about the art that engages their life," he says. "Now, there are places that definitely do that, like the New Yorker, NPR, Atlantic Monthly, Harper's.

"The problem is that a lot of the subjects those publications cover, a lot of society has no relationship to. They've never listened to Yo La Tengo records. They haven't seen the films that are supposed to be important."

In profiling pop stars and rock bands, Klosterman's general approach is to seek out what someone "represents." Britney Spears, for example, "is not so much a person as she is an idea, and the idea is this: You can want everything, so long as you get nothing."

On Steve Nash, the Phoenix Suns point guard, he writes: "Nash plays basketball in a deftly metaphoric manner."

Of course, Spears and Nash both appear to have little idea what Klosterman is talking about when he asks them about their metaphoric meaning. And ironically enough, Klosterman can't figure it out, either, when it comes to himself.

"I do feel like in a very big way, I've totally lost control of my life," he says. "It doesn't matter what I write, because people seem to be addressing either this idea of me . . . or they're just writing about the perceived success of my career."

IV also contains Klosterman's first published fiction, a short story he wrote several years ago about a man who is driving when a woman falls out of the sky and lands on his car.

He's now working on a novel that he describes as about "small town mythology," and which is clearly a new challenge for him.

"I'm predisposed to see meaning in things that might seem meaningless," Klosterman says, "but that doesn't mean I can make meaning clear to people in a narrative sense."

Paper clip turns into film role for Sask. resident

A series of trade ups over the internet involving a red paper clip and the town of Kipling, Sask. has resulted in a Hollywood movie role for one of the town's residents.

It all began with Kyle MacDonald of Montreal, who placed the paper clip on eBay last summer, hoping to trade up to a home. After 14 trades — which involved a keg of beer, a cube van, a recording contract, a snowmobile and a snow globe from rock star Alice Cooper — MacDonald got his wish.

He traded a KISS snow globe for a speaking part in a Corbin Bernsen film. Bernsen — the former star of L.A. Law — is a snow globe collector. Then the town of Kipling stepped in, trading the house for the movie role.

Over the weekend, Kipling held a giant welcoming party for MacDonald and his girlfriend, who arrived to take over possession of the house. The story has received worldwide attention and the weekend festivities included visitors from as far away as Australia.

Bernsen auditioned about 150 people, and announced late Sunday he was awarding the film role to Kipling resident Nolan Hubard, 19.

"This has been my dream since I was like 10-years-old. I can't stop shaking. I'm going to pass out," said Hubard, who will have a speaking part in Bernsen's Donna On Demand.

"He obviously just has a raw talent and capability," Bernsen said. "I am going to take him to L.A. and try to introduce him to people and get him going."

Bernsen is also considering shooting a Christmas comedy in Kipling.

However, MacDonald was the star attraction over the Labour Day weekend. He was named honorary mayor on Sunday and given the keys to the town.

The festivities also marked the first time 12 of the 14 paper clip traders had met each other. Corrina Haight from Vancouver, who offered a fish pen for the paper clip, gave it back to MacDonald on Sunday.

He said that once he's settled in, he's going to concentrate writing a book about his experiences as well as creating "the biggest paper clip the world has ever seen" to commemorate the experience.

New Releases, Sept. 5: Beyonce, Audioslave, Iron Maiden

Beyonce "B'Day"

It's a big week for Beyonce Knowles. Not only is she celebrating her 25th birthday (Sept. 4), but she is also releasing the follow-up to her 2003 debut, "Dangerously in Love."

To top "Dangerously in Love," the former leader of Destiny's Child will have her work cut out for her. That smash set has reportedly sold more than 11 million copies to date worldwide. It also earned her five trophies at the 2004 Grammy Awards, tying the record for Grammy wins by a female artist in a single year.

So far, she's off to a good start with "B'Day." The CD's first single, "Deja Vu"--which features a guest appearance from Beyonce's boyfriend, rap-mogul Jay-Z--is already a hit on radio.

In other Beyonce news, the vocalist held a nationwide search in June to find musicians to form an all-female band. Later that same month, the collective made its first public appearance backing Knowles at the BET Awards ceremony.

* * *
Audioslave "Revelations"

Rock supergroup Audioslave--featuring former Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell and former Rage Against the Machine power trio Tom Morello (guitar), Tim Commerford (bass) and Brad Wilk (drums)--returns with its third album.

The new CD follows 2005's "Out of Exile," which debuted at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 chart. The album's first single is titled "Original Fire" and the disc also features the track "Wide Awake," which is reportedly a song about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Having worked with producer Rick Rubin on both its 2002 self-titled debut and "Out of Exile," the Grammy-nominated quartet has now turned to veteran producer/mixer Brendan O'Brien, whose resume includes albums with Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots and Bruce Springsteen, as well as Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine.

Last October, Audioslave offered up a live DVD/CD set titled "Live in Cuba," which captured the band's May 6, 2005 performance at Anti-Imperialist Plaza in Havana. The group is the first American rock band to perform on Cuban soil.

* * *
Iron Maiden "A Matter of Life and Death"

The metal monsters return with their 14th studio record and their first since 2003's "Dance of Death." The first video/single from the album is "The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg."

In a break of band tradition, Iron Maiden will kick off its tour in support of "A Matter of Life and Death" in North America before hitting Europe. The tour, which features UK metal outfit Bullet for My Valentine in the opening slot, begins Oct. 4 in Hartford, CT.

* * *
Jars of Clay "Good Monsters"

Christian alt-rockers Jars of Clay are set to unleash "Good Monsters," the follow-up to 2005's "Redemption Songs." The multi-platinum band, which has won a trio of Grammy Awards, currently is on a North American tour in support of the new album. Jars of Clay are next scheduled to perform on Sept. 10 in Nashville.

* * *
Hem "Funnel Cloud"

The eclectic New York-based group, which combines elements of folk, country and pop, returns with a proper studio follow-up to 2004's "Eveningland." Earlier this year, the band released a collection of covers, rarities, outtakes, demos and live recordings titled "No Word from Tom."

* * *
More new releases:
Alice in Chains, "The Essential Alice in Chains" (Legacy)
Joshua Bell, "Voice of the Violin" (Sony)
Blind Guardian, "Twist in the Myth" (Nuclear Blast)
Dru Down, "Cash Me Out" (City Hall)
Missy Elliott, "Respect M.E. (Best Of)" (Warner)
Kinky Friedman, "The Best Of Kinky Friedman" (Shout! Factory)
Billy Gilman, "Billy Gilman" (Image)
Goatwhore, "A Haunting Curse" (Metal Blade)
Heaven Shall Burn, "Deaf To Our Prayers" (Century Media)
J-Diggs, "Bay Commission" (Thizz)
Kinky, "Reina" (Nettwerk)
Outerspace, "Blood Brothers" (Babygrand)
Ozark Mountain Daredevils, "Sing Their Best" (Country Roads)

Katie Couric debuts Tuesday on CBS

NEW YORK - With a rebuilt newsroom behind her and new theme music from an Academy Award-winning composer, Katie Couric is set to make the most talked-about debut of the fall television season Tuesday on the "CBS Evening News."

CBS hopes that many of the viewers who watched Couric in the morning during her 15 years at NBC's "Today" show will stay with her in the evening, lifting a broadcast that has spent several years in the ratings basement.

Tuesday caps a tumultuous two years for network evening newscasts. For more than two decades, the networks had been the TV homes of Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and Dan Rather. Now, Couric will compete against Brian Williams at the top-rated NBC "Nightly News" and Charles Gibson at ABC's "World News."

It's part of a season of changes for TV. Rosie O'Donnell makes her debut on the daytime talk show "The View" Tuesday, Meredith Vieira replaces Couric on "Today" next week, and a brand new network — the CW — will shortly put the WB and UPN out of business.

CBS cleared out the newsroom at its headquarters on Manhattan's West Side this summer and built a new one that will be used for Couric's set. James Horner, who composed the music for "Titanic," wrote new music for the evening news theme. Couric even went on a six-city "listening tour" to hear what viewers want on the news.

Legendary CBS newsman Walter Cronkite recorded an introduction for Tuesday's show, but it still wasn't clear Monday whether it would be used, spokeswoman Sandra Genelius said.

Anticipating the debut of the first woman hired to solely anchor a network evening newscast, folks in the TV news industry have obsessed over everything from what Couric will wear to how serious a demeanor she will present coming from the often silly world of morning TV.

Expect a few new wrinkles in the newscast, like a regular commentary segment featuring outsiders called "Free Speech."

Couric may also have hinted at a new style during a brief appearance Thursday on Bob Schieffer's final broadcast as anchor after a year and a half. Evening newscasts have infrequently featured one-on-one interviews, but Couric briefly chatted with Schieffer on camera while the two sat in director's chairs in front of the new set.

She appeared later that night at a cocktail party at a midtown Manhattan restaurant to honor Schieffer, who will contribute commentary to the newscast and continue as "Face the Nation" host.

"I can't imagine following in the footsteps of a kinder, more gracious person," Couric said.

Besides Tuesday's newscast, CBS is setting up a flashy launch for Couric. She's scheduled to interview President Bush at the White House on Wednesday for a prime-time special, and her first "60 Minutes" report about the toxic fallout from the World Trade Center collapse is set for Sunday.

Jerry Lewis telethon raises record $61M

LAS VEGAS - Jerry Lewis' annual Labor Day telethon raised a record $61 million to fight muscular dystrophy, bolstered by a huge donation from a group of firefighters and the lack of a major hurricane before the show.

"We did good," said Lewis, 80, looking choked up as the final figure, $61,013,855, flashed across the tote board Monday. "I can only thank you from the bottom of my heart for so many little people that can't thank you, can't show their appreciation in any way."

Leading the contributors was the International Association of Fire Fighters, which donated a record $23.5 million.

The previous record for the telecast, which has raised $1.4 billion to fight the disease since 1966, was set in 2003. That year, supporters gave $60.5 million.

The following years were marred by hurricanes, including last year, when Katrina knocked out television stations along the Gulf Coast and donors focused on hurricane support. The telethon raised $54.9 million to battle muscular dystrophy last year.

"I think there was a great sense of relief that there weren't any storms," said Bob Mackle, Muscular Dystrophy Association spokesman.

The broadcast, which returned to Las Vegas this year after 11 years in Los Angeles, began Sunday evening and was carried on 190 stations in the United States and Canada.

'Invincible' repeats as No. 1 movie

LOS ANGELES - Mark Wahlberg remained invincible at the box office over the long Labor Day weekend. Disney's "Invincible," with Wahlberg as a pro football rookie who makes the team in open tryouts, was the No. 1 movie for the second straight weekend, taking in $15.2 million from Friday through Monday, according to studio estimates. The movie lifted its 11-day total to $37.8 million.

Lionsgate's action tale "Crank," with Jason Statham as a hitman out for revenge while racing to find an antidote after he's poisoned, opened at No. 2 with $13 million.

Nicolas Cage's "The Wicker Man," a Warner Bros. remake of a 1973 thriller about a cop tracking a missing child on an eerie island, took in $11.7 million to debut in third place.

The weekend's other new wide release, Sony's basketball tale "Crossover," opened outside the top 10 with $4.5 million.

Two acclaimed films continued to expand to more theaters and scored again with audiences. Fox Searchlight's road-trip comedy "Little Miss Sunshine," starring Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette and Steve Carell, was No. 4 with $9.7 million.

Yari Film Group's "The Illusionist," starring Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti in a drama about a mysterious magician in early 1900s Vienna, expanded into wide release and broke into the top 10 with $8 million.

After gradually rolling out following debuts in a handful of theaters, the two films maintained the best per-theater averages among the top-10 movies. Playing in 1,602 locations, "Little Miss Sunshine" averaged $6,071 a cinema, while "The Illusionist" did $8,261 in 971 theaters.

In limited release, IFC Films' documentary "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" opened strongly with $41,664 in two theaters for a $20,832 average. The film, a harsh critique of Hollywood's movie ratings system, expands to more theaters through September.

Hollywood closed the summer with a solid Labor Day weekend, typically a slow time at movie theaters as students prepare to head back to school and families squeeze in last-minute barbecues and other outdoor activities. The top 12 movies took in $98.7 million, up slightly from the same weekend last year.

After domestic revenues went into a tailspin in 2005, Hollywood has rebounded with a sturdy year, with movie attendance rising about 3 percent compared to last summer.

"This was a summer that I think reflected the fact that people still want to go to the movies," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations. "We didn't break any records, but the box office is alive and well."

Here are the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Monday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. Final figures will be released Tuesday.

1. "Invincible," $15.2 million.
2. "Crank," $13 million.
3. "The Wicker Man," $11.7 million.
4. "Little Miss Sunshine," $9.7 million.
5. "The Illusionist," $8 million.
6. "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," $7.7 million.
7. "Barnyard: The Original Party Animals," $6.4 million.
8. "Accepted," $5.9 million.
9. "World Trade Center," $5.8 million.
10. "Step Up," $5.5 million.

Stingray kills 'Crocodile Hunter' Irwin

CAIRNS, Australia - Steve Irwin, the hugely popular Australian television personality and conservationist known as the "Crocodile Hunter," was killed Monday by a stingray while filming off the Great Barrier Reef. He was 44.

Irwin was at Batt Reef, off the remote coast of northeastern Queensland state, shooting a segment for a series called "Ocean's Deadliest" when he swam too close to one of the animals, which have a poisonous barb on their tails, his friend and colleague John Stainton said.

"He came on top of the stingray and the stingray's barb went up and into his chest and put a hole into his heart," said Stainton, who was on board Irwin's boat at the time.

Crew members aboard the boat, Croc One, called emergency services in the nearest city, Cairns, and administered CPR as they rushed the boat to nearby Low Isle to meet a rescue helicopter. Medical staff pronounced Irwin dead when they arrived a short time later, Stainton said.

Irwin was famous for his enthusiasm for wildlife and his catchword "Crikey!" in his television program "Crocodile Hunter." First broadcast in Australia in 1992, the program was picked up by the Discovery network, catapulting Irwin to international celebrity.

He rode his image into a feature film, 2002's "The Crocodile Hunters: Collision Course" and developed the wildlife park that his parents opened, Australia Zoo, into a major tourist attraction.

"The world has lost a great wildlife icon, a passionate conservationist and one of the proudest dads on the planet," Stainton told reporters in Cairns. "He died doing what he loved best and left this world in a happy and peaceful state of mind. He would have said, 'Crocs Rule!'"

Prime Minister John Howard, who hand-picked Irwin to attend a gala barbecue to honor President Bush when he visited in 2003, said he was "shocked and distressed at Steve Irwin's sudden, untimely and freakish death."

"It's a huge loss to Australia," Howard told reporters. "He was a wonderful character. He was a passionate environmentalist. He brought joy and entertainment and excitement to millions of people."

Irwin, who made a trademark of hovering dangerously close to untethered crocodiles and leaping on their backs, spoke in rapid-fire bursts with a thick Australian accent and was almost never seen without his uniform of khaki shorts and shirt and heavy boots.

Wild animal expert Jack Hanna, who frequently appears on TV with his subjects, offered praise for Irwin.

"Steve was one of these guys, we thought of him as invincible," Hanna, director emeritus of the Columbus (Ohio) Zoo and Aquarium, told ABC's "Good Morning America" Monday.

"The guy was incredible. His knowledge was incredible," Hanna said. "Some people that are doing this stuff are actors and that type of thing, but Steve was truly a zoologist, so to speak, a person who knew what he was doing. Yes, he did things a lot of people wouldn't do. I think he knew what he was doing."

Irwin's ebullience was infectious and Australian officials sought him out for photo opportunities and to promote Australia internationally.

His public image was dented, however, in 2004 when he caused an uproar by holding his infant son in one arm while feeding large crocodiles inside a zoo pen. Irwin claimed at the time there was no danger to the child, and authorities declined to charge Irwin with violating safety regulations.

Later that year, he was accused of getting too close to penguins, a seal and humpback whales in Antarctica while making a documentary. Irwin denied any wrongdoing, and an Australian Environment Department investigation recommended no action be taken against him.

Stingrays have a serrated, toxin-loaded barb, or spine, on the top of their tail. The barb, which can be up to 10 inches long, flexes if a ray is frightened. Stings usually occur to people when they step on or swim too close to a ray and can be excruciatingly painful but are rarely fatal, said University of Queensland marine neuroscientist Shaun Collin.

Collin said he suspected Irwin died because the barb pierced under his ribcage and directly into his heart.

"It was extraordinarily bad luck. It's not easy to get spined by a stingray and to be killed by one is very rare," Collin said.

News of Irwin's death spread quickly, and tributes flowed from all quarters of society.

At Australia Zoo at Beerwah, south Queensland, floral tributes were dropped at the entrance, where a huge fake crocodile gapes. Drivers honked their horns as they passed.

"Steve, from all God's creatures, thank you. Rest in peace," was written on a card with a bouquet of native flowers.

"We're all very shocked. I don't know what the zoo will do without him. He's done so much for us, the environment and it's a big loss," said Paula Kelly, a local resident and volunteer at the zoo, after dropping off a wreath at the gate.

Stainton said Irwin's American-born wife Terri, from Eugene, Ore., had been informed of his death, and had told their daughter Bindi Sue, 8, and son Bob, who will turn 3 in December.

The couple met when she went on vacation in Australia in 1991 and visited Irwin's Australia Zoo; they were married six months later. Sometimes referred to as the "Crocodile Huntress," she costarred on her husband's television show and in his 2002 movie.

Some stations want cursing out of '9/11'

NEW YORK - Broadcasters say the hesitancy of some CBS affiliates to air a powerful Sept. 11 documentary next week proves there's been a chilling effect on the First Amendment since federal regulators boosted penalties for television obscenities after Janet Jackson's breast was exposed at a Super Bowl halftime show.

"This is example No. 1," said Martin Franks, executive vice president of CBS Corp., of the decision by two dozen CBS affiliates to replace or delay "9/11" — which has already aired twice without controversy — over concerns about some of the language used by the firefighters in it.

"We don't think it's appropriate to sanitize the reality of the hell of Sept. 11th," Franks said. "It shows the incredible stress that these heroes were under. To sanitize it in some way robs it of the horror they faced."

Actor Robert De Niro hosts the award-winning documentary, which began as a quest to follow a rookie firefighter on an ordinary day but resulted in the only known video of the first plane striking the World Trade Center and horrific and inspiring scenes of rescue, escape and death. CBS will show it on Sept. 10 from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. EDT, profanity intact.

Carter G. Phillips, a lawyer for Fox Television Stations Inc., cited the decision by several CBS affiliates to replace the documentary or show it after 10 p.m., the time at which the Federal Communications Commission loosens restrictions, when he spoke last week to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.

Phillips addressed the court as part of a hearing on whether the FCC rushed to judgment in concluding that "NYPD Blue" and three other programs violated decency rules.

Saying the FCC was chilling free speech rights, Phillips mentioned the documentary to show the court how timid broadcast companies had become since the FCC toughened its position toward profanities after the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show on CBS, in which Jackson's breast was briefly bared.

Congress recently boosted the maximum fines the FCC can impose for indecency from $32,500 to $325,000.

So far, about a dozen CBS affiliates have indicated they won't show the documentary, another dozen say they will delay it until later at night and two dozen others are considering what to do.

On Friday, Sinclair Broadcasting became the latest company to say it was delaying the broadcast until after 10 p.m. on its stations in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Portland, Maine, saying it was concerned it could face fines.

The announcement came as the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association readied its 3 million members to flood the FCC and CBS with complaints after the documentary airs.

"This isn't an issue of censorship. It's an issue of responsibility to the public," said Randy Sharp, director of special projects for the group, which describes itself as a 29-year-old organization that promotes the biblical ethic of decency.

The documentary first aired on the six-month and one-year anniversaries of the Sept. 11 attacks on the trade center and the Pentagon. This latest showing, on the eve of the five-year anniversary, includes new interviews with many of the firefighters featured in the original, describing how their lives have changed.

Franks said it was an easy decision not to edit the language in the documentary, especially since it has won a George Foster Peabody Award, among others. "It was a much more difficult decision five years ago when the emotions were much more raw and fresh," he said.

Franks said it seemed "dishonest somehow" for the network to cover up the real language five years later because of the current regulatory environment.

However, he said he understood the difficulties of small stations that fear the huge FCC fines. "We're not twisting arms," he said.

FCC spokeswoman Tamara Lipper said the commission routinely takes context into account in any decency analysis.

"We don't police the airwaves. We respond to viewer complaints," Lipper said. "We haven't seen the broadcast in question. It's up to individual stations to decide what they should air or not air."

She noted that "the historical context of 9/11 is important to the context of the broadcast" but said she could not predict how the commission might view the show if it receives complaints.

Sharp promised on Friday that his organization would flood the FCC with complaints, saying nearly 198,000 people already had told the FCC they want the agency to "enforce the law should CBS decide to break it."

CBS is feeling the heat. "Even if all 206 stations decide between now and the 10th to air the program live, what we have gone through for the past two or three weeks is overwhelming evidence of the chill facing broadcasters," Franks said.

"Invincible" leads U.S. holiday box office

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Walt Disney Pictures' feel-good football movie "Invincible" led the North American holiday box office for a second weekend, ahead of new releases "Crank" and "Wicker Man," according to studio estimates issued on Sunday.

Because of the Labour Day holiday, data were sketchy. The studios will issue a fuller picture on Monday, and final ticket sales on Tuesday.

"Invincible," starring Mark Wahlberg in a true-life story about an underdog football player, sold about $11.9 million worth of tickets in the three days beginning Friday, said Disney. Its 10-day total stands at $34.5 million.

"Crank," starring English actor Jason Statham as a professional killer in a fight for survival, opened at No. 2, according to some rival studios, although figures were not available from the film's distributor, Lionsgate.

Warner Bros. Pictures' remake of the cult British thriller "The Wicker Man," this time starring Nicolas Cage as a cop investigating a girl's disappearance in a mysterious community, opened at No. 3 with $9.6 million.

Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin killed

BRISBANE, Australia - Steve Irwin, the Australian television personality and environmentalist known as the Crocodile Hunter, was killed Monday by a stingray barb during a diving expedition, Australian media reported. He was 44.

The accident happened while Irwin was filming an underwater documentary on the Great Barrier Reef in northeastern Queensland state, Sydney's The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on its Web site.

The paper and other Australian media reporting the death cited police or state government sources.

Telephone calls to Australia Zoo, Irwin's zoo in southern Queensland, were not immediately answered.

Ottawa man may sue Air Canada after viola smashed

A 20-year-old Ottawa man says he might sue Air Canada for damages after his $14,000 viola arrived in pieces.

Paul Casey, a music student at University of Ottawa, was returning from performing with the Youth Orchestra of the Americas in Europe when Air Canada insisted he check his viola as baggage.

He was told the airline has a strict policy against taking carry-on items weighing more than 10 kilogram.

Although the instrument case bore fragile stickers, it arrived with a snapped neck, a broken back and about 12 cracks on its front.

"We just figured it would last. We figured we would have it forever," he said of the custom-made instrument.

Air Canada sent him a cheque for $1,600 compensation. That's not nearly enough to replace it, he said.

Casey returned the cheque because he's thinking about getting lawyers involved.

Guy Hamilton, the Ottawa violin maker who made Casey's instrument, says it can't be repaired.

It has sentimental value for Hamilton, because it's the first instrument he made in Canada.

"It's the first instrument that I know of that's been destroyed," he said in an interview with CBC Television.

Casey wonders why he was allowed to take the instrument on board in the past, but cannot now.

But the Air Transport Association of Canada warns musicians they shouldn't expect any special treatment and says the new rules about cabin baggage will be more consistently enforced.

Other Ottawa area musicians say they fear they will have the same experience when they travel.

Joan Harrison, an NAC cellist, said she buys a separate ticket for her cello, so it can sit on a seat beside her, but now the airline is preventing that.

"Air Canada three times this year has not let me take my cello on board even though I've had a ticket," she said, "because you don't know what kind of airplane you're getting and they happen to be small flights." .

Instruments such her cello are very valuable, as well as a means of making a living, she said.

"I could sell my instruments and could buy another house. You spend years saving up. You have mortgages on your instruments."

David Goldblatt, a performer with the NAC and representative of the American Federation of Musicians, said performers are worried. Many won't check their instruments and that may mean they can't travel.

"We have a tour coming up in November and, honestly, I don't know what we're going to do. I believe it's a charter flight, but the same rules apply to charter flights as far as I know," he said.