Daniel Craig Does Five Bonds

Good news on the 007 front with things moving forward fast. Today it was confirmed that Paul Haggis has just handed in his final draft of the "Bond 22" screenplay ahead of the upcoming writer's strike.

Meanwhile MGM chairman and CEO Harry Sloan confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that the studio has signed Daniel Craig to do four more "James Bond" movies after 'Royale'.

This would bring his total to five - just behind Roger Moore (7) and Sean Connery (6), but ahead of Pierce Brosnan (4), Timothy Dalton (2) and George Lazenby (1).

Theme song singers for "Bond 22" are already being talked about with the likes of "X-Factor" winner Leona Lewis and HIM frontman Ville Valo dubiously suggested by the British tabloids this week.

Finally Italy is looking to be a the site of much filming according to MI6 which says that Grand Hotel Gardone and Locanda Punta San Vigilio Hotel on the edge of Lake Garda are to be scouted shortly. The Stelvio Pass in the Italian Alps, and Matera in the Basilicata region are apparently set for shoots.

Krist Novoselic speaks ahead of 'Nirvana Unplugged' DVD

Nirvana's legendary 'MTV Unplugged In New York' performance is finally set to be released on DVD, nearly 14 years to the day from when it was performed.

The DVD will contain both the original broadcast of the show and the complete unedited version of the set with 5.1 Surround Sound.

Speaking to NME.COM, Nirvana's bass player Krist Novoselic said he was looking forward to the release, particularly in its new audio format.

"The new 5.1 sound really opens it up and it gave me a new appreciation for the songs," he explained. "You can hear what each instrument is doing. It really invites you in and I'm sure everyone will enjoy it in a new way. I'd really like to re-release 'In Utero' in that way at some point."

In between songs on the unedited 66-minute version, the band are seen affably chatting with each other, debating what songs to play and even taking requests from the audience.

At one point, they even break into a jokey version of Lynyrd Skynyrd's classic 'Sweet Home Alabama' with guest performers The Meat Puppets.

Also featured on the DVD are previously unseen rehearsal takes of 'Plateau', 'About A Girl', 'Polly', 'Come As You Are', 'All Apologies' and their cover of David Bowie's 'The Man Who Sold The World'.

A rehearsal version of 'Pennyroyal Tea' which features guitarist Pat Smear also playing in the track is included. This was originally the way the band planned to perform the song until Kurt Cobain decided at the last minute to play it solo during the show.

Additionally, a 20 minute documentary featuring interviews with the band and members of the crew are also included.

The DVD is set for release on November 20th.

Hollywood strike could hit Canuck TV

TORONTO - Private broadcasters CTV and Global spend a lot of PR dollars heralding the ratings successes of the prime-time American blockbusters that are their top moneymakers - "Grey's Anatomy," "Desperate Housewives" and "House" among them.

But there won't be any new episodes of those fan favourites much past January if Hollywood screenwriters go on strike Wednesday night for a prolonged period of time, a headache for Canadian networks as they try to determine how to fill the potential gaps in their schedules.

Will Canadian audiences be inundated with reruns or the same glut of reality shows that are expected to flood the American networks if the strike drags on? Or will there be a sudden appearance of homemade programming on CTV and Global?

Both private broadcasters said Tuesday they were watching the situation closely.

"We're talking internally about a range of scenarios - we're planning for the worst but hoping for the best," said Mike Cosentino, senior vice-president of program scheduling for CTV. "We're talking about it, we're planning for contingencies, we're hoping that our schedule can remain vibrant."

Barbara Williams, senior vice-president of programming and production for CanWest MediaWorks, said Global wasn't overly concerned about the long-term impact of a strike.

"We're a long way from facing those problems," she said. "We don't even know if this strike is going to happen. If it does, we'll deal with it then and we'll see how things play out and we'll make some decisions as we go ... first we'll see what the American networks are doing, but they don't know either."

But others suggest a lengthy strike could present golden opportunities for all sorts of players in Canada, from the private broadcasters to CBC and homegrown production companies.

Both Global and CTV have long been criticized for a dearth of homemade programming on their airwaves, and some suggest a long strike could provide them with a captive audience for made-in-Canada shows.

"Gosh, do you think they might actually have to start creating some Canadian product?" Ken Ferguson, head of Toronto Film Studios, a film and television production company, said of Global and CTV.

"This should be an opportunity - it should be the opportunity for Canadians to produce product that would probably find a ready market in the United States as well. But I'll be pleasantly surprised if any of them do that."

While Global said it had no plans to trot out any Canadian programming in the event of a prolonged strike, Cosentino said CTV had plenty of Canadian shows that were slated to air in the months to come - from "Degrassi: The Next Generation" to "Robson Arms."

He added that the network was committed to producing Canadian programming regardless of the strike.

"Is it our intention to run Canadian programming to replace American content? Not exactly. Our strategy with Canadian programming is to run it in the best possible slot we can to deliver it to the right audience," he said. "The reality is, these shows are going to debut with or without a strike and we're going to put our muscle behind them anyway."

For the CBC, a protracted strike could put the public broadcaster in the unusual position of not having to compete every night against new episodes of huge U.S. blockbusters.

"It will be an interesting opportunity for the CBC to not necessarily be up against the American juggernauts," said Kirstine Layfield, head of programming for the network.

"If their shows get affected by the strike and their inventory dries up a bit, it creates a great opportunity for people to check in with the CBC and see what we have, because whenever people do check in with us lately, they like what they see."

Layfield also said she's hearing from Canadian writers and other talent in the U.S. who are pondering a move back home due in part to the strike.

"For a lot of people, it's just sort of the final straw," she said. "It's yet another reason why it might be good to come back home."

Mary Darling, head of Westwind Pictures, the production company behind the CBC hit "Little Mosque on the Prairie," says such a reverse brain drain to the north can only be good for the Canadian industry.

"We've heard some whispers from some talent down in Los Angeles, people trying to cover their butts who shall remain nameless," she said.

"This strike could end up spilling a little bit of sparkle dust on the Canadian community. There's so much Canadian talent down there ... there may be some really interesting, wonderful opportunities for Canadian producers as they draw on the experiences of people who have done volumes and volumes and volumes of writing in L.A. who are coming back home and want to stay home."

Downchild has 8 nominations for Maple Blues Awards

Veteran Toronto blues band Downchild has snagged a leading eight nominations for the Maple Blues Awards, a national award for outstanding achievement in blues music.

Downchild, founded 38 years ago by Donnie Walsh, earned nominations for entertainer, electric act and recording of the year for Live at the Palais Royale.

Each member of the band earned individual nominations — vocalist Chuck Jackson, keyboardist Michael Fonfara, horn player Pat Carey, drummer Mike Fitzpatrick and bassist Gary Kendall.

Toronto soul man Danny Brooks is up for four awards, including best male vocalist and recording of the year for No Easy Way Out.

Downchild is competing for entertainer of the year with Vancouver's Jim Byrnes and Colin James along with Jack de Keyser and Toronto's Shakura S'Aida.

Montreal's Queen of the Blues, Dawn Tyler Watson, who has earned a nomination for best female vocalist and best acoustic act, will host a gala awards ceremony Jan. 21 in Toronto.

Ndidi Onukwulu, Roxanne Potvin, Suzie Vinnick and S'Aida are also in the running for best female vocalist.

Johnny Max, Kevin Breit, Chris Whiteley, Paul Reddick and Fathead also had multiple nominations.

Nominees are selected by a panel of blues experts from across Canada, and winners are selected by the online votes of Canadian fans.

Voting runs Nov. 4 until Dec. 8.

Maple Blues Awards selected nominees

Entertainer of the year
Jim Byrnes
Jack de Keyzer
Downchild
Colin James
Shakura S'Aida

Electric act
Downchild
Sue Foley/Deborah Coleman/Roxanne Potvin
Colin James and the Little Big Band
Garrett Mason
Johnny Max Band

Acoustic act
Diana Braithwaite & Chris Whiteley
Michael Jerome Brown
Harry Manx & Kevin Breit
Big Dave McLean
Dawn Tyler Watson & Paul Deslauriers

Male vocalist
Danny Brooks
Jim Byrnes
Chuck Jackson
Harrison Kennedy
John Mays

Female vocalist
Ndidi Onukuwulu
Roxanne Potvin
Shakura S'Aida
Suzie Vinnick
Dawn Tyler Watson

New artist/group
Little Miss Higgins
Steve Marriner
Son Roberts Band
Steve Strongman
Thom Swift

B-52's Getting The Party Started Again

Fred Schneider blames the 16-year gap between B-52's albums on a lack of proximity.

"All our other records we basically wrote together in one place; now we all live in different parts of the country," Schneider tells Billboard.com ahead of the new "Funplex," due Feb. 26 on Astralwerks. "We'd get together when we could, but it was a slow process.

"Some of us have been wanting to do this for a long time," he continues. "A couple years ago we just started writing, and everything worked out."

"Funplex," which follows 1992's "Good Stuff" and the two new songs which graced 1998's "Time Capsule: Songs For a Future Generation," was recorded with producer Steve Osborne (New Order, KT Tunstall) over two sessions earlier this year in upstate New York and Athens, Ga.

A couple of songs are being considered for the first single -- including the opening and closing tracks, "Pump" and "Keep This Party Going" -- and Schneider says that between now and the album's release, the B-52's plan to create plenty of visual and viral material to support the album.

"We want to do a lot of cheap, YouTube-type stuff rather than watching some tired video by a band," Schneider says. "It just seems more interesting. We want to do something that entertains us, has some edge to it and our fans will dig."

Despite the layoff, Schneider says writing the new material was a natural process. "Keith (Strickland) brought in music and Kate (Pierson), Cindy (Wilson) and I jammed on it," he explains. The sound, he says, is "sexed-up and hyper fun and danceable. It's a B-52's record." There's also a bit of social commentary on the title track and "Keep This Party Going," but Schneider says, "we don't hit people over the heads with it."

"We're just totally behind this record, and we think it's one of our best," Schneider notes. "There hasn't been a B-52's record out in a long time. We have to fill that void that we left."

Schneider says the group has worked up about six of the new songs to play in its shows, which include a Halloween gig tomorrow (Oct. 31) at New York's Roseland Ballroom.

Alanis Morissette tunes in to "Radio"

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Alanis Morissette has joined the cast of sci-fi novelist Philip K. Dick's semiautobiographical feature adaptation "Radio Free Albemuth."

The Canadian pop singer plays Sylvia, a woman who shows up in the vision of a record label executive named Nick (Jonathan Scarfe) as a glamorous singer.

In reality, she's an ordinary woman in unexpected remission from lymphoma who, after appearing in Nick's visions, gets a job as his secretary. She becomes his soul mate thanks to the pair's shared spirituality and visions.

"Radio" began filming this month in and around Los Angeles. Director John Alan Simon adapted the script from Dick's 1976 novel, which was published posthumously in 1985. It was loosely based on his own experience with visions in the mid-'70s.

"I am a big fan of Philip K. Dick's poetic and expansively imaginative books," Morissette said. "I feel blessed to portray Sylvia, and to be part of this story being told in film."

The Grammy-winning "You Oughta Know" singer guest-starred as a lesbian on three episodes of the FX plastic-surgery drama "Nip/Tuck" last year.

Jerry Seinfeld returns with `Bee Movie'

NEW YORK - Jerry Seinfeld casually refers to "the TV show" like it was just another resume entry, a vaguely familiar event from his past.

Wait, wasn't that TV show "Seinfeld"? One of the greatest comedies in TV history? You know, the one with double-dippers, puffy shirts and mimbos?

Seinfeld, it seems, has moved on more than most of his audience. Though "the TV show" ended its historic run in 1998, the perpetual glow of "Seinfeld" has been mostly uninterrupted because its star and namesake has remained largely out of sight — like his beloved Superman resting in his Fortress of Solitude.

Seinfeld has even been called "the J.D. Salinger of television," as Conan O'Brien recently joked.

"I'm doing as much as I possibly can, I promise you," says Seinfeld, archly defending himself with a laugh in his Manhattan office, where the award statuettes are outnumbered only by the many model cars that dot the room.

The 53-year-old comedian is releasing "Bee Movie," a film which began as a causal pun made over dinner with Steven Spielberg. A call was then placed to Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of Dreamworks Animation SKG, and the small joke eventually spiraled into a $150 million blockbuster which Seinfeld has spent more than three years writing, producing and voicing the main character.

Seinfeld, of course, hasn't been doing nothing since "Seinfeld." He and wife Jessica were married in 1999 and have since had three children. Seinfeld's mission has generally been to return to being a standup comedian; his relentless work to build a new act was documented in the 2002 film "Comedian."

But that documentary grossed less than $3 million in limited release. Tens of thousands have seen Seinfeld in comedy clubs across the country — contributing a significant chunk of estimated yearly earnings of $60 million, including $15 million for "Seinfeld" residuals, according to Forbes.

To those who wish they saw him more, Seinfeld replies with his characteristic flare for language: "Me too, but I wonder if they would be willing to accept me being not good. I wish I could do more, too, but I can't do more as good, so I figure I'll do less, but good."

For years Katzenberg pitched movie roles to Seinfeld, who had numerous opportunities to star in films. So why did Seinfeld make "Bee Movie" his first feature film and his first major post-"Seinfeld" project?

"One very simple difference, but it made all the difference in the world: This was his idea," says Katzenberg. "If you look at Jerry's work, his entire career was always about doing things he authored."

Katzenberg adds: "Jerry has his own rhythms and his own interests."

Like the bees depicted in "Bee Movie," Seinfeld believes in sticking to what you do best, and for him, that's centered upon the comedic persona he's sharpened and refined over decades. He would rather leave the acting to the pros. "Tom Hanks is available. He can do it," he jokes.

Finding a new challenge, though, was imperative.

"That's why I haven't made a live action movie," Seinfeld says, explaining that it would be "too similar to what we did on the show. ... And I have no need for the ego gratification of `Hey, I'm in a movie.' But this medium was so different and interesting — that kind of sparked my energy."

The comedian acknowledges that his energy was low after working on "Seinfeld" for nearly a decade. The painstaking process of creating an animated movie, though, has left him "even more tired than I was before," he says.

What's distinctive about "Bee Movie" is how thoroughly it's imbued with Seinfeld's sense of humor. The involvement of talent in animated films doesn't typically go beyond a few days in a sound studio, but "Bee Movie" is essentially Seinfeld in bee form. Though Dreamworks is pitching it as a family movie, Seinfeld never had kids in mind when writing it.

"You should feel like you really spent time with my outlook on silliness, I guess," he says. "That's why I tried to put my fingerprint on everything in the movie — so it feels like it was made by one person. Sometimes that studio, corporate feel — the movies can feel very processed so it feels like generic entertainment."

Evident is Seinfeld's love of details (the bees can survive up to about 75-pages of magazine thickness, making the especially thick Italian Vogue the most frightening of weapons), his gift for gymnastic phrasing (his character remarks: "There's quite a bit of pomp under the circumstances") and his sometimes overlooked inclination for pushing comedy to surreal ends.

That was most obvious once his "Seinfeld" partner and co-creator Larry David left the show before the last two seasons, leading to some out-there plots (like Kramer hydrating Jerry's car with his own blood). In "Bee Movie," the bee voiced by Seinfeld sues honey companies for stealing the bees' honey.

"I always try to work personally," he explains. "On the TV show, we never thought we would have an across-the-board appeal — we didn't seek it. We just thought, `Let's make our little thing and whoever likes it, likes it.' I tried the same thing with this."

Seinfeld has a lot riding on "Bee Movie," and he has aggressively (and creatively) promoted it — like bungee-jumping at the Cannes Film Festival and hosting a series of one-minute sketch comedy promos he calls "TV Juniors."

The unflappable Seinfeld acknowledges: "I'm a little keyed up about the movie's opening. I think of it as extreme interest in the outcome."

Once the fanfare of "Bee Movie" has subsided, Seinfeld simply is planning to hit the road again and get back to what he calls his "normal, daily life": writing and honing his standup act.

Still, he says, "It's fun to chop down a big tree once in a while. I don't know if I could live this way all the time, but every once in a while. I think that's why people run these marathons: `I wonder if I could run that far without dying.' It's idiotic, but it's part of human nature."

Singer Robert Goulet dies at 73

LOS ANGELES - Robert Goulet, the handsome, big-voiced baritone whose Broadway debut in "Camelot" launched an award-winning stage and recording career, has died. He was 73.

The singer died Tuesday morning in a Los Angeles hospital while awaiting a lung transplant, said Goulet spokesman Norm Johnson.

He had been awaiting a lung transplant at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after being found last month to have a rare form of pulmonary fibrosis.

Goulet had remained in good spirits even as he waited for the transplant, said Vera Goulet, his wife of 25 years.

"Just watch my vocal cords," she said he told doctors before they inserted a breathing tube.

The Massachusetts-born Goulet, who spent much of his youth in Canada, gained stardom in 1960 with "Camelot," the Lerner and Loewe musical that starred Richard Burton as King Arthur and Julie Andrews as his Queen Guenevere.

Goulet played Sir Lancelot, the arrogant French knight who falls in love with Guenevere.

He became a hit with American TV viewers with appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and other programs. Sullivan labeled him the "American baritone from Canada," where he had already been a popular star in the 1950s, hosting his own TV show called "General Electric's Showtime."

The Los Angeles Times wrote in 1963 that Goulet "is popping up in specials so often these days that you almost feel he has a weekly show. The handsome lad is about the hottest item in show business since his Broadway debut."

Goulet won a Grammy Award in 1962 as best new artist and made the singles chart in 1964 with "My Love Forgive Me."

"When I'm using a microphone or doing recordings I try to concentrate on the emotional content of the song and to forget about the voice itself," he told The New York Times in 1962.

"Sometimes I think that if you sing with a big voice, the people in the audience don't listen to the words, as they should," he told the paper. "They just listen to the sound."

While he returned to Broadway only infrequently after "Camelot," he did win a Tony award in 1968 for best actor in a musical for his role in "The Happy Time." His other Broadway appearances were in "Moon Over Buffalo" in 1995 and "La Cage aux Folles" in 2005, plus a "Camelot" revival in 1993 in which he played King Arthur.

His stage credits elsewhere include productions of "Carousel," "Finian's Rainbow," "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," "The Pajama Game," "Meet Me in St. Louis," and "South Pacific."

Goulet also got some film work, performing in movies ranging from the animated "Gay Purr-ee" (1962) to "Underground" (1970) to "The Naked Gun 2 1/2" (1991). He played a lounge singer in Louis Malle's acclaimed 1980 film "Atlantic City."

He returned to Broadway in 2005 as one half of a gay couple in "La Cage aux Folles," and Associated Press theater critic Michael Kuchwara praised Goulet for his "affable, self-deprecating charm."

Goulet had no problems poking fun at his own fame, appearing recently in an Emerald nuts commercial in which he "messes" with the stuff of dozing office workers, and lending his name to Goulet's SnoozeBars. Goulet also has been sent up by Will Ferrell on "Saturday Night Live."

"You have to have humor and be able to laugh at yourself," Goulet said in a biography on his Web site.

The only son of French-Canadian parents, Goulet was born in Lawrence, Mass. After his father died, his mother moved the family to Canada when the future star was about 13.

He received vocal training at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto but decided opera wasn't for him. He made his first professional appearance at age 16 with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. His early success on Canadian television preceded his breakthrough on Broadway.

When his onetime costar Julie Andrews received a Kennedy Center Honors award in 2001, Goulet was among those joining in singing in her honor.

In his last performance Sept. 20 in Syracuse, N.Y., the crooner was backed by a 15-piece orchestra as he performed the one-man show "A Man and his Music."

Although Goulet headlined frequently on the Las Vegas Strip, one period stood out, evidenced by a photograph that hung on his office wall. It was the mid-1970s, and he had just finished a two-week run at the Desert Inn when he was asked to fill in at the Frontier, across the street.

Overnight, the marquees of two of the Strip's hottest resorts read the same: "Robert Goulet."

"I played there many, many years and have wonderful memories of the place," Goulet told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

His first two marriages ended in divorce. He had a daughter with his first wife, Louise Longmore, and two sons with his second wife, Carol Lawrence, the actress and singer who played Maria in the original Broadway production of "West Side Story."

After their breakup, she portrayed him unflatteringly in a book. "There's a fine line between love and hate," he responded in a New York Times interview. "She went on every talk show interview and cut me to shreds, and I've never done anything like that, and I won't."

Holiday movie season preview

LOS ANGELES - Among your choices on Hollywood's holiday menu, you can have talking bees and chipmunks or savage aliens and predators. You can have jolly elves and pretty princesses or vicious gangsters and the mother of all mythic monsters. You can have music, or you can have blood. And in at least one case, you can have both.

"I remember I did try to pitch it as a musical with lots of blood," director Tim Burton recalled of his early attempts many years ago to make a movie version of Stephen Sondheim's stage hit "Sweeney Todd."

With frequent collaborator Johnny Depp in the title role, Burton finally succeeds with an adaptation of the musical about the murderous 18th century Londoner who turns his barber business into a shop of horrors.

This time of year is Hollywood's most diverse, offering a mix of dark drama vying for Academy Award attention, action, horror and fantasy sagas, and light comedy and animated films.

Among the comic and cartoon offerings: "Bee Movie," with Jerry Seinfeld providing the voice of a worker bee who sues humanity for stealing honey; "Alvin and the Chipmunks," a blend of live-action and computer animation featuring Jason Lee and the little cartoon rodents; "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium," starring Dustin Hoffman and Natalie Portman in the tale of a magical toy shop; "Enchanted," with Amy Adams as a cartoon fairy-tale princess exiled by a wicked queen (Susan Sarandon) into very real Manhattan; and "Fred Claus," with Vince Vaughn as the black-sheep brother of old St. Nick (Paul Giamatti).

Reuniting Vaughn with "Wedding Crashers" director David Dobkin, "Fred Claus" casts Santa's brother as a guy who's lived for centuries in Santa's shadow.

"There's definitely a sense of sibling rivalry," said Giamatti, who wears a fat suit to play Santa. "I was always kind of the favourite, I become Santa Claus and everybody loves me. Everywhere he looks, Santa is everywhere, and he's just a screw-up who can't hold a job."

The season offers a couple of real-world holiday stories with "This Christmas," a family-reunion flick whose ensemble cast includes Delroy Lindo, Regina King and Mekhi Phifer, and "The Perfect Holiday," featuring Gabrielle Union, Morris Chestnut, Queen Latifah and Terrence Howard in a romance between a single mom and a store Santa.

In his first big project since his sitcom went off the air, Seinfeld also co-wrote "Bee Movie," the idea stemming from his childhood fascination for nature documentaries. Seinfeld liked the drama - and unintentional laughs - those shows brought to the natural world.

"I found them kind of funny, because they make one species the hero. That week, whatever his prey is, you want him to kill it. The next week, the one that was the hero becomes the prey, and you want that one to die," Seinfeld said. "Your allegiance changes with whoever is the star of the show that week."

Disney's "Enchanted" tweaks the studio's legacy by forcing a classic animated princess to survive in an unfamiliar realm.

"It begins in the animated kingdom. My character is looking for her true love, and she immediately meets him, but the prince's jealous stepmother casts her into Manhattan," Adams said. "She confronts all sorts of realities. There's an old man who steals her crown, she learns the truth about gravity. She learns what food tastes like. It just tastes different in the real world."

A look at other highlights this season:

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT:

Two grave, violent, brilliantly executed crime sagas could emerge as front-runners for this year's best-picture Oscar. Ridley Scott's "American Gangster," with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, and Joel and Ethan Coen's "No Country for Old Men," featuring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin, have caught strong buzz in advance screenings.

Based on a true story, "American Gangster" stars Washington as a 1970s Harlem drug lord who balances brutality with altruism and Crowe as a freewheeling but upright Jersey cop on his trail.

"No Country for Old Men" is adapted from Cormac McCarthy's novel and features Jones as a sheriff tracking a merciless killer (Bardem), who in turn is pursuing a good old Texas boy (Brolin) who made off with a fortune in drug money.

Also on the crime front is "Hitman," with Timothy Olyphant starring as a genetically engineered assassin in an adaptation of the video game, and Woody Allen's "Cassandra's Dream," the filmmaker's third-straight tale set in England.

"Cassandra's Dream" is Allen at his darkest, with Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell as brothers lured into a murder scheme. Allen said he set out to craft a tragedy among ordinary people, McGregor playing an ambitious son stuck toiling in his ailing father's restaurant, Farrell an auto mechanic with modest aspirations.

"I wanted two nice brothers. Ewan a sweet guy who works for his father even though he doesn't want to," Allen said. "And Colin a decent guy who just wants to have a nice little house with his wife and all that. They get into this terrible situation because of their ambition, because of their flaws, and they get swept up in this tragic thing."

LANDS OF MAKE-BELIEVE:

In the fantasy footsteps of "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Chronicles of Narnia" comes "The Golden Compass," with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig leading the cast in the adventure of a young girl trying to rescue a friend in an alternate reality.

Robert Zemeckis brings the Norse legend of "Beowulf" to life with similar technology he used on "The Polar Express" to capture live actors whose performances are then digitally animated. The film features Anthony Hopkins, Ray Winstone and Angelina Jolie as Beowulf's vile foe, Grendel's mother.

Emily Watson leads the cast of "The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep," about a Scottish boy whose magical egg hatches into a legendary creature that lives in a little body of water called Loch Ness.

BLACK GOLD AND LEGENDARY RICHES:

Daniel Day-Lewis stars as a fortune-seeker in California's oil boom of the early 1900s in "There Will Be Blood," a saga loosely based on an Upton Sinclair novel and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson ("Magnolia").

Nicolas Cage reunites with producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Jon Turteltaub for "National Treasure: Book of Secrets," the sequel to their 2004 smash.

This time, Cage's history-minded treasure hunter sets out to clear the name of an ancestor implicated in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the quest leading to a mythic cache of wealth and a secret text intended only for the eyes of U.S. leaders.

"A book only presidents are privy to, and in the book are all the secrets of the great myths, like Area 51, the Kennedy assassination or who was involved with this conspiracy, or Cibola," a legendary city of vast riches sought by early Spanish explorers, Cage said. "What becomes revealed to us is there was this enormous treasure, kind of a Native American sacred temple that was a city of gold."

CURRENT AFFAIRS:

Robert Redford directs himself, Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep in "Lions for Lambs," an ideological saga set against the war in Afghanistan involving a presidential hopeful, an inspirational professor and a story-hungry journalist.

"Charlie Wilson's War," from director Mike Nichols, stars Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman in a drama about the architects of the U.S. response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

"The Kite Runner" is the stark story of an Afghan boy who flees with his father to America after the Soviet invasion but returns as an adult to rescue the son of an old childhood friend.

In "Grace Is Gone," John Cusack plays a man who takes his daughters on a road trip to put off breaking the news that their mother has died in action in Iraq.

DEATH AND DYING:

Francis Ford Coppola returns with his first film in 10 years. The fantastical "Youth Without Youth" stars Tim Roth as an elderly scholar filled with regret. His whose life's work, a tome on the origins of language, remains unfinished; when a freak lightning strike restores his youth, he has a chance to correct past mistakes.

The second-chance theme resonated with Coppola, who spent much of the last decade developing an epic film that never got off the ground. He wound up financing "Youth Without Youth" himself and shot it like a young maverick director fresh out of film school.

"I found lots of parallels in the character's life and my life," Coppola said. "I had the big work I hadn't been able to finish. I got a chance to reinvent myself and make a film not as a big Hollywood producer but as kind of a new wave filmmaker."

"P.S. I Love You" stars Hilary Swank as a widow whose husband left behind a series of tasks for her to cope with her grief and get on with her life.

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney team for "The Savages," playing a brother and sister reluctantly forced to care for their estranged, dying father.

"The Bucket List" features Jack Nicholson as a wealthy business executive and Morgan Freeman as an auto mechanic, both dying of cancer, who form an unlikely friendship and set out to do all the things they wish they'd done with their lives.

"Two older guys who have cancer and are going to die, that doesn't sound like a blockbuster," said Rob Reiner, who directed "The Bucket List." "But when you see the movie, it's emotional, it's uplifting, and it's not about dying. It's a movie about living and embracing life."

LOVE AND MARRIAGE:

Nicole Kidman plays a writer sowing discontent as the marriage of her sister (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to an out-of-work artist (Jack Black) approaches in "Margot at the Wedding."

Javier Bardem, Catalina Sandino Moreno and Benjamin Bratt star in "Love in the Time of Cholera," an adaptation of the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez that traces the half-century wait of a man to win his true love.

"Atonement" features Keira Knightley and James McAvoy in a chronicle of the repercussions that follow a teenage girl's false accusations against her sister's lover.

CREATURE FEATURES:

Last man alive Will Smith fends off the remnants of humanity, who have been transformed into nocturnal fiends in "I Am Legend," a new adaptation of the novel that also was the basis for Charlton Heston's "The Omega Man" and Vincent Price's "The Last Man on Earth."

"There's something primal about being the last person on Earth," said Smith, who spends much of the movie alone and in silence. "It's me and a dog for the first probably hour and 15 minutes."

"Stephen King's the Mist" is the third adaptation of the horror master by director Frank Darabont ("The Green Mile," "The Shawshank Redemption"). Thomas Jane and Marcia Gay Harden lead the cast in the tale of townsfolk threatened by creatures from a mysterious mist.

The grudge match continues between two breeds of space monster in "Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem."

BALLADS, BLUES AND BOB:

Not one, but six Bob Dylans come to the screen in "I'm Not There," director Todd Haynes' dreamlike portrait of the rock icon. Among the performers doing Dylan: Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett, who plays a Dylan-esque folk idol enraging his fans by going electric.

Blanchett's character comes the closest to the real Dylan, a spot-on rendering of the musician in the mid-1960s as he confounded fans and critics with oblique prattle and unpredictable musical turns.

"That's why Todd wanted a woman to play it, because if you had a man play it, you would have been looking for the impersonation," Blanchett said. "And so you would have been seeing the shortfall, whereas you're automatically saying there's a Brechtian distance here between character and performer, and that allows for the poetry and kind of the irony to really breathe."

John Sayles' "Honeydripper" stars Danny Glover as a Deep South proprietor making one last stab to save his failing juke joint, hiring an electric-guitar whiz amid the transition from blues to rock 'n' roll in the 1950s.

John C. Reilly stars in "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story," a comedy chronicling the sordid life of a musician who lives the extreme rock-star life as he sleeps around, sires kids and does every drug he can find.

"August Rush" features Robin Williams, Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Freddie Highmore in the story of an orphaned musical prodigy seeking his parents.

And the season's big musical question: Can Johnny Depp sing?

"He's a very musical person, but when he said he would do it, nobody had any idea if he could sing. I knew him well enough to know that he wouldn't have said yes to doing it if he couldn't," said "Sweeney Todd" director Burton, adding that he was pleasantly surprised at how well the vocals of Depp and co-stars Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen and Alan Rickman turned out.

"It's pretty much all actors, not professional singers, and they really did a great job. It's one of my favourite roles that Johnny has done."

New CD Releases, October 30: Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, Levon Helm

Britney Spears "Blackout"

It's been four years since the pop diva released her last new studio album, 2003's "In the Zone," which produced the mega-hit "Toxic." Yet, the public can be excused for thinking that the hiatus has actually been much longer. That's because it seems like ages since the star was in the news for something music related.

But--oh, boy!--has Britney been in the news a lot over the last four years. There have been countless tabloid stories about her marriage woes, child-custody problems and party-animal escapades (with and without panties).

Finally, the star returns with her fifth studio effort, "Blackout." The album was officially leaked on the Internet recently, allowing folks to hear all 12 of the tracks, and some of the early reviews have been surprisingly positive. Spears has received more good news with the album's first single, "Gimme More," which has proven to be a hit both on radio and on the charts.

* * *
Backstreet Boys "Unbreakable"

The Jive label should utterly dominate record sales this week. Not only does Britney have a new album coming out, but the Backstreet Boys are back as well.

That's right--Howie, Nick, AJ and Brian are back and ready to try and re-capture the title of top boy band. With 'NSync on the shelf, that shouldn't be too hard.

The only member that isn't in the fold for "Unbreakable" is Kevin Richardson. The singer has left the band, reportedly to focus on starting a family, though it is speculated that he will rejoin the group for its next album.

The first single from the set is the piano-ballad "Inconsolable."

The Backstreet Boys hope that "Unbreakable" will further add to what is already a very impressive career in terms of album sales. The group has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making it one of the best-selling pop bands of all time.

* * *
Levon Helm "Dirt Farmer"

The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, who came to fame as the drummer in The Band, apparently likes to take his time. Case in point: "Dirt Farmer" is Helm's first new solo studio album in 25 years.

The 67-year-old Arkansas native handles several different instruments (including drums and mandolin) as well as all the lead vocals on this album. He receives some assistance on "Dirt Farmer" from such guests as multi-instrumentalist Larry Campbell (a longtime member of Bob Dylan's band) and his daughter Amy (a member of Ollabelle).

The album comes after some trying times in Helm's life. Notably, he underwent treatments for throat cancer, and a fire consumed some 80 percent of his recording studio.

* * *
Andrea Bocelli "The Best of Andrea Bocelli: Vivere"

The platinum-plus-selling tenor vocalist is set to deliver his first-ever greatest- hits package. The collection includes such fan favorites as "Romanza," "La Voce del Silenzio" and "Time to Say Goodbye," Bocelli's smash duet with Sarah Brightman.

Bocelli will support this set with a tour that kicks off Dec. 1 in Las Vegas. He's currently scheduled to remain on the road through a Dec. 15 date in Anaheim, CA.

* * *
Original Soundtrack "I'm Not There"

This 2-disc soundtrack to the forthcoming film about Bob Dylan features several different talents covering the great songwriter's works. Included in the mix are Eddie Vedder, Cat Power, John Doe, Sufjan Stevens and Calexico, among many others.

* * *
More new releases:
Avenged Sevenfold, "Avenged Sevenfold" (Warner Bros)
David Bowie, "David Bowie Box" (Sony)
Will Downing, "After Tonight" (Peak)
Flyleaf, "Flyleaf" (Interscope)
Robert Fripp and Brian Eno, "Unreleased Works of Sterling Genius" (DMG)
Joy Division, "Closer" (Rhino)
Joy Division, "Unknown Pleasures" (Rhino)
Layo and Bushwacka, "Global Underground: Rio de Janeiro" (GU)
Otep, "The Ascension" (Koch)
Puscifer, "V Is for Vagina" (Puscifer Ent)
Queen, "Queen Rock Montreal" (Hollywood)
Taking Back Sunday, "Notes from the Past" (Victory)
Josh Turner, "Everything Is Fine" (MCA)

Soundtracks and scores:
"Twin Peaks: All New Season Two Music" (Absurda)

Parton sang for Wagoner in final hours

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Dolly Parton said Monday she feels like a part of her died along with her old duet partner, Porter Wagoner. But she said she was grateful that she was able to spend a few final hours with the man who launched her career before he succumbed to cancer Sunday.

"Part of him will always live through me and my music as he was my first big break," Parton said.

The 80-year-old Grand Ole Opry star and showman died of lung cancer Sunday in a Nashville hospice, after being transferred there Friday from a hospital.

Parton said she was there with his family, sang for him and prayed with him.

"It felt good that I had the opportunity to say goodbye properly," Parton said.

Wagoner had a streak of hits in the 1960s and '70s, and enjoyed a comeback in recent months with a new album.

To many longtime fans, though, he may be best remembered for his sparkly rhinestone suits and for singing with Parton on his TV show from 1967 to 1974.

Marty Stuart, who produced Wagoner's last album, the critically acclaimed "Wagonmaster," said he grew up watching his TV show and they later became close friends.

Stuart was one of the musicians who backed Wagoner this summer when he opened for the influential rock group the White Stripes at Madison Square Garden, a show that underscored the aging singer's newfound popularity with a fresh wave of young fans.

"He was a masterful showman who understood the art of the final act," Stuart said. "He left the world on top."

Stuart said Wagoner had been invited to light the nation's Christmas tree at the Pageant of Peace celebration in Washington, D.C., next month.

"One of the last things he said to me was, 'You're gonna have to call the president and tell him I won't be able to sing him any Christmas songs this year. Maybe next year,'" Stuart recalled.

Country music singer Patty Loveless said Wagoner was a mentor to her in her early years and became like family to her.

"He encouraged me and helped me to fulfill my dreams and was truly an inspiration," Loveless said. "I love him and I miss him already."

The Grand Ole Opry announced Monday that funeral arrangements would be open to the public. Visitation will be Wednesday at a local funeral home, with a funeral on Thursday at the Grand Ole Opry House.

Slings & Arrows victorious with big wins at Gemini gala

Slings & Arrows, a Movie Network show about the goings on behind the scenes of a fictional Shakespearean theatre festival, nabbed four major awards at the Gemini gala in Regina on Sunday.

The show won best dramatic series as well as best writing in a drama. Actors Paul Gross and Martha Burns, a husband and wife team who star in the show, were honoured with acting trophies.

CBC host George Stroumboulopoulos launched the 22nd annual Gemini Awards Gala with a pre-packaged skit involving a bus trip to Saskatchewan, calling the province "flat" and dropping by the outdoor sets of CBC's Little Mosque on the Prairie and CTV's Corner Gas, both filmed in the province.

Throughout the sketch, various TV personalities, including Rick Mercer, sex therapist Sue Johanson and Alex Trebek of Jeopardy!, admonished the host of The Hour for his faux pas.

Stroumboulopoulos, dressed nattily in a black suit with tie, hosted the final awards night celebrating Canadian English-language television at Regina's Conexus Arts Centre, the second time the gala night has been located outside of Toronto. Vancouver was host to last year's show.

Men in Trees lead James Tupper, Jason Priestley and Gross were the first guest hosts on the stage. The three joked about their tenuous connections as Priestly played a game of Six Degrees of Separation.

The threesome handed out the best actress award in a dramatic series to Gross's wife Burns. Gross was later presented with a best actor trophy for the same series.

Instead of giving a thank you speech, Gross honoured William Hutt, a founding company member of Canada's Stratford Festival, who died this year.

Next in the show came Brent Butt of Corner Gas and Carlo Rota of Little Mosque on the Prairie. Rota commented on how his show was shut out of all categories but was given a special Canada Award for fostering racial tolerance in the country.

Butt's response? "Oh, too bad."

Actress shocked by win

The pair presented the award for best individual performance in a comedy program. The winner turned out to be a very shocked Phyllis Ellis for The Wilkinsons, beating out the likes of Rick Mercer of the CBC's Rick Mercer Report and John Cleese in the Just for Laughs Gala Series.

"I feel great. I'm sure you're all wondering who I am but I'm not hurt," joked Ellis.

Best Comedy Series went to Corner Gas, which beat out CBC shows This Hour Has 22 Minutes and the Royal Canadian Air Farce, the animation Odd Job Jack and Rent-A-Goalie.

"We all want to dedicate this to the crew which works hard on the show here in Regina … and gets it into 1.6 million homes every week," said the series creator and star Brent Butt.

Howie Mandel, who now hosts the popular game show Deal or No Deal and handed out the award with wrestler Trish Stratus, complained how none of these series offered him a guest starring role.

After the award was given out, Stroumboulopoulos sat behind Luba Goy and pointed out the Air Farce star, joking that he once went out with her.

Little Mosque captures Canada Award

Other skits included a mock public service announcement for FLOP, Forgotten Lives of Puppets, with actress Camilla Scott telling the public that "Did you know that puppets only have a five-year life span in the entertainment business?"

The fast-moving show, sliced down to a one-hour broadcast from the usual two hours, cut to CBC comedian Sean Majumder, Smallville's Kristen Kreuk and Sarah Chalke of Scrubs to present the best drama series trophy to Slings & Arrows.

The show's creators and stars stood back to allow Peter Hutt, the nephew of William Hutt, to give the official acceptance.

"Thank you for Slings & Arrows … it's as magical an experience as I've had in television," said Hutt, whose uncle appeared in the series.

Mercer presented the prize for best host in a sports program to the CBC's Ron MacLean for Hockey Night in Canada. MacLean began his career on the program in 1986.

MacLean, who now has seven Geminis, thanked his wife, parents and singled out fellow sportscaster James Duthie who covers the NHL for TSN: "Duthie, you deserve a win, too."

CBC program Little Mosque on the Prairie was then honoured with the Canada Award for helping spread tolerance and understanding through its series.

"I'd like to thank my broadcaster, CBC, for being brave," said show creator Zarqa Nawaz, who stood along with her producers and several members of the cast.

The show, now in its second season, gets more than a million viewers every week.

Last presenter: Dan from Regina

The last award of the televised show featured a "regular white guy" — introduced as Dan from Regina — who presented the inaugural Viewers Choice Award, given to a Canadian who is not eligible for a Gemini.

"This is so amazing," said an ebullient Howie Mandel, who won through an online voting poll over 21 other Canadians starring in Hollywood productions.

"It's great to reward people for their talent and skill but I think it's much more important to be popular."

Mandel had the audience laughing as he said, "I can now tell people I am the favourite Canadian" and then invited Dan to hang out with him.

Stroumboulopoulos ended the show by thanking the people of Regina and Saskatchewan and the crew: "For the love of God, we got it done in an hour."

Here is your list of winners:

Best Dramatic Series
Slings & Arrows (Movie Network)

Best Actor in a Drama Series
Paul Gross, Slings & Arrows

Best Actress in a Drama Series
Martha Burns, Slings & Arrows

Best Direction in a Drama Series
Chris Haddock, Intelligence (CBC)

Best Comedy Series
Corner Gas (CTV)

Best Ensemble in a Comedy
Brent Butt, Lorne Cardinal, Fred Ewanuick, Gabrielle Miller, Eric Peterson, Nancy Robertson, Tara Spencer-Nairn, Janet Wright, Corner Gas

Best Writing in a Comedy
Mark Farrell, Corner Gas

Best Writing in a Drama
Susan Coyne, Bob Martin, Mark McKinney, Slings & Arrows

Best Host or Interviewer in a Sports Program
Ron MacLean, Hockey Night in Canada (CBC)

Best News Anchor
Gord Martineau, CityNews at Six - Toronto

Best Music or Variety Program
2006 MuchMusic Video Awards

Best Social/Political Documentary
Fatherland

Country star Porter Wagoner dies at 80

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Porter Wagoner was known for a string of country hits in the '60s, perennial appearances at the Grand Ole Opry in his trademark rhinestone suits, and for launching the career of Dolly Parton.

Like many older performers, his star had faded in recent years. But his death from lung cancer Sunday, at 80, came only after a remarkable late-career revival that won him a new generation of fans.

The Missouri-born Wagoner signed with RCA Records in 1955 and joined the Opry in 1957, "the greatest place in the world to have a career in country music," he said in 1997. His showmanship, suits and pompadoured hair made him famous.

He had his own syndicated TV show, "The Porter Wagoner Show," for 21 years, beginning in 1960. It was one of the first syndicated shows to come out of Nashville and set a pattern for many others.

"Some shows are mechanical, but ours was not polished and slick," he said in 1982.

Among his hits, many of which he wrote or co-wrote, were "Carroll County Accident," "A Satisfied Mind," "Company's Comin'," "Skid Row Joe," "Misery Loves Company" and "Green Green Grass of Home."

The songs often told stories of tragedy or despair. In "Carroll County Accident," a married man having an affair is killed in a car crash; "Skid Row Joe" deals with a once-famous singer who's lost everything.

In 2002, he was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

In May, after years without a recording contract, he signed with ANTI- records, an eclectic Los Angeles label best known for alt-rock acts like Tom Waits, Nick Cave and Neko Case.

Wagoner's final album, "Wagonmaster," was released in June and earned him some of the best reviews of his career. Over the summer, he was the opening act for the influential rock duo White Stripes at a sold-out show at New York's Madison Square Garden.

"The young people I met backstage, some of them were 20 years old. They wanted to get my autograph and tell me they really liked me," Porter said with tears in his eyes the day after the New York show. "If only they knew how that made me feel — like a new breath of fresh air."

To many music fans, Wagoner was best known as the man who boosted Parton's career. He had hired the 21-year-old singer as his duet partner in 1967, when she was just beginning to gain notice through songs such as "Dumb Blonde."

They were the Country Music Association's duo of the year in 1970 and 1971, recording hit duets including "The Last Thing on My Mind."

Parton's solo country records, such as her autobiographical "Coat of Many Colors," also began climbing the charts in the early 1970s. She wrote the pop standard "I Will Always Love You" in 1973 after Wagoner suggested she shift from story songs to focus on love songs.

The two quit singing duets in 1974 and she went on to wide stardom with pop hits and movies such as "9 to 5," whose theme song was also a hit for her.

Wagoner sued her for $3 million in assets, but they settled out of court in 1980. He said later they were always friendly, "but it's a fact that when you're involved with attorneys and companies that have them on retainer, it makes a different story."

At a charity roast for Wagoner in 1995, she explained the breakup this way: "We split over creative differences. I was creative, and Porter was different."

He said in a 1982 Associated Press interview that his show "was a training ground for her; she learned a great deal and I exposed her to very important people and the country music fans."

She was present at the ceremony in May 2007 honoring Wagoner on his silver anniversary with the Opry. At the time, he called Parton "one of my best friends today." She also visited him in the hospital as he battled cancer.

Wagoner, who had survived an abdominal aneurysm in 2006, was hospitalized again this month and his publicist disclosed he had lung cancer. He died at 8:25 p.m. CDT Sunday in a Nashville hospice, said Darlene Bieber, a spokeswoman for the Opry.

Country singer and Opry member Dierks Bentley visited Wagoner in the hospice over the weekend and said Wagoner led them in prayer, thanking God for his friends, his family and the Grand Ole Opry.

"The loss of Porter is a great loss for the Grand Ole Opry and for country music, and personally it is a great loss of a friend I was really just getting to know," Bentley said. "I feel blessed for the time I had with him."

Pete Fisher, vice president and general manager of the Opry, said the Opry family of musicians and performers was deeply saddened by the news. "His passion for the Opry and all of country music was truly immeasurable," Fisher said.

Wagoner was born in West Plains, Mo., and became known as "The Thin Man From West Plains" because of his lanky frame. He recalled that he spent hours as a child pretending to be an Opry performer, using a tree stump as a stage.

He started in radio, then became a regular on the "Ozark Jubilee," one of the first televised national country music shows. On the Opry since 1957, he joined Roy Acuff and other onetime idols.

At one point his wardrobe included more than 60 handmade rhinestone suits.

"Rhinestone suits are just beautiful under the lights," he said. "They've become a big part of my career. I get more compliments on my outfits than any other entertainer — except for Liberace."

While he continued with the Opry, and even had a small part in the 1982 movie "Honky Tonk Man" starring Clint Eastwood, his recording career dried up in the 1980s — until his return this year.

"I stopped making records because I didn't like the way they were wanting me to record," he said. "When RCA dropped me from the label, I didn't really care about making records for another label because I didn't have any say in what they would release and how they would make the records and so forth."

'Saw IV' slays in $32.M debut weekend

LOS ANGELES - The killer of the "Saw" franchise may be dead, but his sadistic spirit lives on. Lionsgate's "Saw IV" led the weekend box office with $32.1 million, maintaining the horror franchise's position as a Halloween perennial, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Debuting at No. 2 was Disney's "Dan in Real Life," a romance starring Steve Carell, Juliette Binoche and Dane Cook that took in $12.1 million.

Overall Hollywood revenues declined for the sixth-straight weekend, though business was off only a fraction compared to the same weekend last year. The top-12 movies took in $86.1 million, down 2 percent, better results than the previous weeks, when business had fallen significantly more.

The results for "Saw IV" were on par with the debut of "Saw III," which pulled in $33.6 million over the same weekend last year. Since the original low-budget "Saw" became an out-of-nowhere fright sensation in 2004, Lionsgate has released a new chapter each October, all hits.

"I would expect to see `Saw V' next year, `Saw VI' the year after that and `Saw VII' the following year if they can keep it up," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. "There's just something inherently gruesome and compelling about these movies. I don't know what that says about society in general, but it certainly works at the box office."

"Saw IV" features post-mortem horrors concocted by the fiendish killer Jigsaw (Tobin Bell, seen in flashbacks), whose autopsy turns up a cassette tape in his entrails that leads the cops into a new snare of torture puzzles the madman left behind.

"Dan in Real Life" was the prime choice for the date crowd. The movie stars Carell as a widower raising three daughters who falls for his brother's new girlfriend (Binoche) during a family reunion.

In narrower release, Roadside Attractions' "Bella" opened solidly with $1.3 million. The film stars Eduardo Verastegui as a former soccer player who hooks up with a pregnant waitress (Tammy Blanchard).

Thinkfilm's "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," directed by Sidney Lumet ("Dog Day Afternoon," "Network"), opened strongly in limited release at two New York City theaters with $73,500. The film, which gradually expands into nationwide release through November, stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke as brothers in financial straits who plot to rob their parents' jewelry store.

A high-profile documentary, Sony Pictures Classics' "Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains," had a poor debut, taking in just $10,573 at seven theaters. The film from director Jonathan Demme ("The Silence of the Lambs") follows the former president during a tour to promote his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid."

Here are the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. "Saw IV," $32.1 million.
2. "Dan in Real Life," $12.1 million.
3. "30 Days of Night," $6.7 million.
4. "The Game Plan," $6.3 million.
5. "Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married?", $5.7 million.
6. "Michael Clayton," $5 million.
7. "Gone Baby Gone," $3.9 million.
8. "The Comebacks," $3.45 million.
9. "We Own the Night," $3.4 million.
10. "Tim Burton's the Nightmare Before Christmas," $3.35 million.

The Couch Potato Report - October 27th, 2007

This week The Couch Potato Report peels some DVDs that have been released, just in time for all Hallow's Eve!

Halloween is on Wednesday, and in advance of that, the studios have been releasing and re-releasing titles that are apropos for this time of year.

Specifically - horror films.

So, I have a few of those to briefly tell you about, and then I have a Canadian film that scared me more than any of those movies.

Let me start with THE REAPING, a religion-themed horror film that features the Ten Plagues of Egypt, and stars two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank.

In a small Louisiana bayou town called Haven, the death of a child in mysterious circumstances sparks of a series of events that seem to represent the aforementioned biblical plagues.

Rivers and other water sources turned to blood, amphibians, lice or gnats, wild animals, disease on livestock, and so on.

Hilary Swank from MILLION DOLLAR BABY is former Christian missionary who now travels to places to prove that it isn't God who is behind these type of events, and she proves the truth using science.

THE REAPING isn't the most original horror film that you will ever see - especially since it doesn't even know if it wants to be a horror film, a thriller or a movie about a person losing their faith - and the twists and turns it does offer that are close to being original are fairly predictable.

So, if you like Hilary Swank, and you enjoy this type of film at this time of year, then perhaps you will get some entertainment value out of THE REAPING.

I didn't dislike it, and I don't think it was a waste of my time, but I have seen better.

In fact, I saw better right after it was over...because when THE REAPING was done, I watched the 25th ANNIVERSARY EDITION of the Academy Award nominated horror film POLTERGEIST.

A real-life poltergeist is a spirit or ghost that manifests itself by moving and influencing objects.

The film of that name is set in a time when television stations went off the air after a full day or programming.

And while one such station is off the air, the television in five-year-old Carol Anne's parents' suburban California living room begins communicating with her.

Or, something inside of it does anyway.

In something that was incredibly unique at the time of the film's original release on June 4th, 1982, Carol Anne gets pulled inside the TV, and the rest of teh movie focusses on her family's attempt to get her back.

POLTERGEIST was written by Steven Speilberg and directed by Tobe Hooper, who also gave us another great Halloween film - THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, and the two men working together gave us many great scares 25 years ago, and their film still holds up today!

The 25th ANNIVERSARY EDITION DVD doesn't feature a comprehensive retrospective documentary, or any unique making of featuretees, and that is disappointing.

But it does contain the film itself, and that is good enough for me.

Up next, for your Halloweekend viewing "pleasure" is: the two-disc, four-film set CHUCKY - THE KILLER DVD COLLECTION about a less than perfect child's doll.

This surprisingly still enjoyable set about a homicidal doll doesn't feature the original 1988 horror film CHILD's PLAY - as that film was produced by a different studio than the one releasing this set - but it does feature the very enjoyable sequel CHILD'S PLAY 2, the less than enjoyable CHILD'S PLAY 3, the campy and very entertaining BRIDE OF CHUCKY - with Emmy winner Katharine Heigl and Canadian actress Jennifer Tilly - and the not-so-good SEED OF CHUCKY.

Chucky is one of the most recognizable faces of film horror over the last two decades, along with Freddy and Jason - and if you can accept the premise - about a small doll that somehow manages to overpower every human - no matter how big - he faces - then you will be entertained by this inexpensive set of four films.

Somehow the premise worked when they were originally released, and it stands up now.

These are great films for this time of year!

Okay, the next release I have for you is not a stereotypical horror film, it is more of a thriller with horrific elements.

Kevin Costner plays a bad guy in MR. BROOKS.

Costner's Earl Brooks is an upstanding bow tie wearing, box making business owner and family man who, is named the Portland Chamber of Commerce's Man of the Year.

But secretly, Earl is addicted to killing, just for the thrill.

And then, after a two-year break from his addiction, Mr. Brooks starts up again.

William Hurt plays the dark side of Mr. Brooks' ego, Demi Moore is the cop who is on his trail, and comedian Dane Cook is a man who catches Brooks in the murderous act, but instead of turning him in...explains that there is something else he wants.

MR. BROOKS, both the film and the character played by Kevin Costner, is creepy. But they aren't really all that satisfying.

I'm not disappointed I saw it, as the script, acting and premise are all sort of interesting, but somehow it just didn't all come together to form a movie that I could wholeheartedly recommend.

I also can't wholeheartedly recommend THE SOPRANOS - SEASON 6, PART 2 DVD

When it first came on, and for the first few seasons THE SOPRANOS was one of the most unique and interesting shows on TV.

For the last few years it was a train wreck, a car crash...something that I didn't watching, but just couldn't look away from.

The four disc set that is SEASON 6, PART 2 of THE SOPRANOS features more episodes that are boring than ones that are superb, but somehow I enjoyed sitting through it again over the past few weeks, especially since I already knew what happened in the controversial final episode.

An episode that is now available on DVD.

Our final film this week is the Canadian documentary ANTLERS is about the big game hunters of the forests of Northern Quebec.

This movie actually scared me at times...more than any of those horror films....adn I enjoyed every second of it!

I am not a hunter now, nor have I ever been a hunter.

I have no issues with those who do hunt, I just don't hunt myself.

ANTLERS introduces us to people who enjoy hunting...who really, really enjoy hunting!

The film is in French, so I don't have a clip to prove my point, but I can tell you that at one point we meet a guy who has 25 mounted Deer heads on the walls of the place where he lives.

And he is hoping to add to that.

Oh, and it is his parents house, but he is hoping to get his own house some day so he will have more room for his trophies.

I found that a bit scary...entertaining, but scary!

If you have ever wanted to see real life hunters gutting a moose, carving a beaver, or setting traps to catch these and other animals, then ANTLERS is the film for you!

Personally, I was intrigued, grossed out, offended, and entertained, all at the same time!

This is everything you want in a film during a Halloweekend!!

ANTLERS, THE SOPRANOS - SEASON 6, PART 2 DVD, MR. BROOKS, and the horror films CHUCKY - THE KILLER DVD COLLECTION, POLTERGEIST and THE REAPING are all available now on DVD.

Coming up on the next Couch Potato Report

GEOLOGIC JOURNEY takes a look at the vast, wild beauty we call Canada at it traces the extraordinary history of our continent.

TALK TO ME is a film - based on the true story - of an ex-con who became a popular talk show host and community activist, in the late sixties and early seventies.

MEET THE ROBINSONS is an animated film from Walt Disney about a young inventor.

ENTOURAGE - SEASON THREE, PART TWO features the latest DVD releases of Vince, E, Turtle and Johnny Drama.

And LICENSE TO WED is an unfunny comedy that is so bad, it may cause engaged people to rethink their plans.

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!

Shatner's Kirk not aboard for new `Trek'

LOS ANGELES - The original Capt. Kirk is disheartened he won't get to boldly go anywhere with his old pal Spock in the new "Star Trek" movie.

While Leonard Nimoy is reprising his role as the pointy-eared Vulcan in next year's science-fiction flick, William Shatner is not on board as Kirk.

"I couldn't believe it. I'm not in the movie at all. Leonard, God bless his heart, is in, but not me," Shatner, 76, told The Associated Press on Thursday. "I thought, what a decision to make, since it obviously is a decision not to make use of the popularity I have to ensure the movie has good box office. It didn't seem to be a wise business decision."

Director J.J. Abrams announced last summer that Nimoy would reprise the role he originated opposite Shatner in the 1960s television show and played again in six big-screen adventures.

Abrams said Shatner probably would have a part in the film, which is due in theaters in December 2008. But while Shatner said he had a couple of meetings with Abrams, nothing came of it.

Abrams' "Trek" film, whose plot is being kept under wraps by distributor Paramount, recounts an early adventure for the crew of the starship Enterprise, with Chris Pines as the young Kirk and Zachary Quinto as the young Spock.

The cast includes Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy, Simon Pegg as engineer Scott, John Cho as helmsman Sulu, Zoe Saldana as communications officer Uhura and Anton Yelchin as navigator Chekov, roles respectively originated by DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols and Walter Koenig.

Past "Trek" films presented an obstacle to the revival of Shatner's Kirk, who died at the end of 1994's "Star Trek: Generations."

But in science fiction, you can never truly say die. Spock was killed off in 1982's "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan" then resurrected in 1984's "Star Trek: The Search for Spock," with Nimoy's Vulcan living on to co-star in three more films, two episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and now Abrams' new movie.

"I've got a lot to do," said Shatner, whose current work includes the TV show "Boston Legal," narration for the Christmas spoof "Stalking Santa" due on DVD on Nov. 6, and the prequel "Star Trek: Academy — Collision Course," a novel chronicling Kirk and Spock's first meeting.

Shatner says of "Star Trek": "Having been in on the creation of it, I was hoping to be in on the re-creation."

Massive Pink Floyd Box Due In December

Pink Floyd's entire studio discography will be bundled for the 16-disc boxed set "Oh By the Way," due Dec. 4 internationally. For the time being, the limited pressing of 10,000 will only be available as an import in the United States.

The box spans Pink Floyd's 1967 debut, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn," to its 1994 swan song, "The Division Bell," with a new portrait collage from longtime visual collaborator Storm Thorgerson. Also included is a 20" by 30" poster.

Each album is a reproduction of the original vinyl release, with the "Dark Side of the Moon" cover appearing on CD for the first time since the early 1990s.

Missing from "Oh By the Way" is the rarities album "Relics," live albums "Delicate Sound of Thunder" and "Pulse" and compilations such as "A Collection of Great Dance Songs."

"Oh By the Way" includes:

"The Piper at the Gates of Dawn"
"A Saucer Full of Secrets"
"More"
"Ummagumma"
"Atom Heart Mother"
"Meddle"
"Obscured by Clouds"
"Dark Side of the Moon"
"Wish You Were Here"
"Animals"
"The Wall"
"The Final Cut"
"A Momentary Lapse of Reason"
"The Division Bell"

At 60, Hagar Still Ready To Rock

Although he was laid up recovering on the day after his 60th anniversary bash on Oct. 13 at his Cabo Wabo Cantina in Mexico, Sammy Hagar's advanced age has not slowed the Red Rocker in the slightest. In fact, he says, it's making him work that much harder.

"There's so much I want to do," Hagar tells Billboard.com, "and there's nothing I feel holding me back -- nothing with my age or my physical health or my strength or my enthusiasm, my talent. I'm having more fun that I've ever had, I gotta tell ya."

Hagar, who's currently on the road with former Van Halen bandmate Michael Anthony as his special guest, has a number of projects in the works. First among them is a new album, the follow-up to last year's "Livin' It Up." Hagar says he's about "halfway through" with it and plans to finish recording in December and January for an expected second quarter of 2008 release.

"It's quirky music," Hagar says. "It's a little bit more worldbeat and kinda harder rock, more like going back to (1981's) 'Standing Hampton' or (1984's) 'VOA' or something. Those records were very '80s, with a little bit of influence of Peter Gabriel and people like that. Now I think it's more Peter Gabriel-influenced with a hard rock edge on it."

Hagar will support the album with a summer festival tour, for which he plans an "anthology" tour that will feature the original Montrose lineup, his original Sammy Hagar Band, his current group, the Wabos, and a "superstar guitarist" that will join him and Anthony to play Van Halen material.

"I have some people in mind," Hagar reports, "but I haven't made the call yet." Hagar adds there will also be "a big, all-star jam at the end" of the show.

Hagar, who still retains a 20 percent ownership in his Cabo Wabo tequila brand, has also launched Cabo Wabo Radio, an Internet station that will offer varying levels of free and subscription services -- with an evening program broadcast live from Cabo Wabo.

One thing Hagar won't be doing, however, is Chickenfoot, the "supergroup" he talked about forming with Anthony and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. The trio has jammed before, including at Hagar's birthday bashes, but for now, he says, the project isn't practical.

"I just can't do it," Hagar says. "There's no room in my life for another band, so that's not gonna happen."

'Scrubs' tidies up messy plot details in final season

Don't expect the Ross-and-Rachel routine during the final season of Scrubs.
Creator Bill Lawrence will resolve the will-they-or-won't-they of docs J.D. (Zach Braff) and Elliot (Sarah Chalke). But that's only one of many relationships that will get substantial attention in the hospital comedy's seventh and final season, which premiered on Thursday night.

"We're going to resolve those things during the year rather than build up to some overwrought, emotional finale. This is a comedy. All people want is a chance to say goodbye and that we tie up loose ends," Lawrence says, then jokes: "Then we're going to cut to black really quick and play a Journey song."

Lawrence says the main goal is to satisfy "the loyal cult audience," one that has helped the Emmy-nominated series score a long run, despite so-so ratings.

"This fan base has kept the show alive single-handedly by consuming the DVDs and websites and following us from time slot to time slot," he says. "If you try to satisfy them, they feel very proprietary about the show. If you're not a big juggernaut hit, it's the way to stay alive."

Knowing this is the final season, Lawrence and his writers get to plan the show's conclusion, a luxury that wasn't available last season because it wasn't clear when the show would end. That's one reason last season ended with cliffhanging stories, such as J.D.'s impending fatherhood and Elliot's upcoming wedding, both of which will be addressed this season.

Questions surrounding many other relationships will be answered as well, such as: Will physician buddies J.D. and Turk (Donald Faison), who is married to nurse Carla (Judy Reyes), remain as close as they have been in the face of adulthood? Will J.D. finally get validation from the sharp-tongued Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley)?

Braff, whose perpetual man-child character will do some growing up this season, especially enjoys the intimacy of the J.D.-Turk friendship. "It's funny and original. I think Bill has pushed the envelope in how gay two characters can be without actually being gay," he says of a duo that sang Guy Love in last season's musical episode.

In addition, the janitor (Neil Flynn) will finally get a name and a girlfriend, because that's what Flynn asked for if the show returned for a seventh season. Secondary characters will get attention, including jittery lawyer Ted (Sam Lloyd), self-loving surgeon Todd (Robert Maschio) and Dr. Cox's wife, Jordan (Christa Miller, who is married to Lawrence).

Some guest stars will return, including Tom Cavanagh and Elizabeth Banks. Lawrence and Braff wish they could bring back others, such as Brendan Fraser, but the writers killed off some characters.

In place of a musical, this season's extravaganza, directed by Braff, will pay homage to The Princess Bride, centering on a bedtime story Dr. Cox tells his daughter. That means wild costumes for cast members who will play such characters as the village idiot (Braff), a giant (Flynn), a princess (Chalke) and a knight (McGinley).

Such signature fantasy scenes have been part of Scrubs' odd balancing act, a comedy that can be extremely broad while also touching on serious emotional elements. When the show has gotten too goofy, that connection has broken, Lawrence says.

Braff, who likes the broad comedy, says Scrubs will tone it down this year, reflecting its early days. "I think it's smart to end where it began, which was a smidgen less broad than at times we have been."

MacLaine joins 'Green Gables' cast

Academy Award-winner Shirley MacLaine has joined the cast of Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning, CTV announced yesterday.

MacLaine, 73, will play matriarch Amelia Thomas, alongside Rachel Blanchard (as Louisa Thomas), Barbara Hershey (as the grown-up Anne Shirley) and Hannah Endicott-Douglas (as the young Anne Shirley).

Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning is a made-for-TV movie that will air sometime in 2008.

"Shirley MacLaine is a screen legend," executive producer/director/writer Kevin Sullivan said in a statement. "To be able to cast her unique personality in the role of Amelia Thomas promises to bring both humour and pathos to this production, in a grand style that only a movie star of her stature can elicit."

Hollywood stars get lift to Geminis

TORONTO - A generous "dragon" from the CBC hit show "Dragons' Den" is flying a jetload of stars from Hollywood to Regina for this weekend's Gemini Awards.

Jim Treliving, one of four panel members on the popular reality show, has arranged for a private jet to fly a group of Los Angeles-based actors - some of them Gemini nominees and some of them presenters - to the Saskatchewan capital because there's no direct flight between L.A. and Regina.

Howie Mandel, Sarah Chalke, Jason Priestley, Kathleen Robertson, Andrea Roth, Russell Peters, James Tupper and his girlfriend, Anne Heche, are confirmed to board the flight, said the producer of Sunday's Gemini telecast on CBC-TV.

"He's putting his big bucks to good use getting us some amazing stars up to Regina for the big broadcast," Steve Sloan said from Regina on Wednesday.

"Because there's no direct flight, we had to put our minds together to come up with a solution and so we tapped into one of the dragons who came to our rescue."

Treliving, a former Mountie who owns Boston Pizza, was unsurprisingly humble considering he's known as the kind-hearted "good cop" on the "Dragons' Den" panel.

"The Gemini people just said can you help us out and I said sure," Treliving said in an interview from Dallas, where he's overseeing the company's U.S. expansion.

"I use a jet company, where I can use different sizes of jets for my private use, so there was no problem setting it up."

Treliving said he's nervous, however, that the wildfires currently raging in Southern California could put a crimp in the "Gemini jet" plans. Some roads have been blocked to the Van Nuys Airport in the San Fernando Valley, where the jet is scheduled to depart for Saskatchewan on Sunday afternoon.

"We're keeping our fingers crossed and hoping the situation begins to improve."

Roth ("Rescue Me"), Chalke ("Scrubs") and Mandel ("Deal or No Deal") are all nominated for Geminis while Tupper, who stars in the show "Men in Trees" with Heche, is up for the viewer's choice award for the favourite Canadian actor on television.

"The rest are presenters, happy to support the Canadian industry," Sloan said.

The producer admitted he was nervous that few stars would be able to make it to Regina because there was no direct flight from Hollywood.

"We thought it would be a real stumbling block at the beginning. It was nothing against the city of Regina, but it was just the location in terms of attracting stars. But there's been more stars attached to this show than any other Gemini broadcast I can remember, and I started on the seventh Geminis, and this is now the 22nd."

Prince's Purple Rain reigns over movie soundtrack list

Purple Rain, the film that starred hit recording artist Prince at the height of his 1980s-era success, has topped a list of Hollywood's greatest movie soundtracks compiled by the editors of Vanity Fair.

The magazine revealed the top 10 soundtracks Wednesday that made the cut out of 50 albums that will be explored in a one-off publication entitled Movies Rock.

The special issue, featuring actor Bill Murray's impression of rock and roll icon Elvis Presley on the cover, will be published in November. Issues will be sent to subscribers of 14 titles published by Vanity Fair's publisher Condé Nast.

Editors described Prince's 1984 Purple Rain soundtrack as a combination of "funk, R&B, pop, metal and even psychedelia" that became "a sound that defined the '80s," according to a Reuters report.

However, while hailing the list's soundtracks, the editors also acknowledged the cinematic faults of several of their selections.

The editors described Purple Rain, which netted Prince an Oscar, a Grammy and other trophies, as "perhaps the best badly acted film ever."

Along the same lines, in the write-up of the eighth-ranked Saturday Night Fever, the magazine called the disco-era film's soundtrack "required listening," while at the same time poking fun at the iconic white suit star John Travolta dons in the movie.

The magazine's list of the top 10 greatest soundtracks is:

1) Purple Rain
2) A Hard Day's Night
3) The Harder They Come
4) Pulp Fiction
5) The Graduate
6) Superfly
7) Trainspotting
8) Saturday Night Fever
9) American Graffiti
10) The Big Chill

In conjunction with the special magazine issue, Condé Nast Media Group will host a concert featuring artists such as Elton John, Carrie Underwood and Beyoncé Knowles performing famous music from the movies.

"We wanted to create an extraordinary show that would pay tribute to the indelible impact music has on film," Condé Nast Media Group president Richard Beckman said in a statement issued Wednesday.

Others set to participate include Mary J. Blige, John Legend, Fergie, Jennifer Hudson and John Williams.

The Movies Rock concert will take place Dec. 2 in Los Angeles at the Kodak Theatre, home of the Academy Awards. The event will be broadcast as a two-hour television special on CBS on Dec. 7.

Sarah Jessica Parker Named Unsexiest Woman

The folks over at Maxim magazine think it's too easy picking Charlize Theron as the Sexiest Woman Alive. They'd rather weigh in on who's unsexy.

The unfortunate recipient of the lad mag's Unsexiest title is "Sex & the City" star Sarah Jessica Parker, whose character Carrie Bradshaw is not only in high demand with the opposite sex, but is also a fashion diva among the fair sex.

Maxim, however, points out her more, um, equine features: "How the hell did this Barbaro-faced broad manage to be the least sexy woman in a group of very unsexy women and still star on a show with 'sex' in the title? Pull your skirt down, Secretariat, we´d rather ride Chris Noth."

In the runner-up position is the Beehived One herself, "Rehab" singer Amy Winehouse, whose "openly hemorrhaging translucent skin, rat's nest mane and lashes that look more like surgically attached bats.".

On the small screen, "Grey's Anatomy" star Sandra Oh took third place for playing "Dr. McSkinny, with her cold bedside manner and boyish figure."

Rounding out the Unsexy 5 is Madonna in the penultimate position "with a mug that looks Euro-sealed to her skull." The heir to her pop princess throne, Britney Spears, took last place because, "Less than five years ago, Britney had a python wrapped around her well-toned torso onstage at the VMAs. Since then, she´s lost the ability to perform, but gained two kids, two useless ex-husbands, and about 23 pounds of Funyun pudge."

First look: Comedy guru Mike Myers loves his characters

LOS ANGELES — Mike Myers doesn't seem like a slowpoke. He tends to talk fast, play multiple characters in his movies and rattle off jokes like Robin Williams on Red Bull.

But the secret behind his comedy, he says, is patience.

It has taken Myers four years to do his first live-action movie since 2003's The Cat in the Hat and a decade to create an original comic character (his last being 1997's Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery).

He finally returns with The Love Guru, which hits screens June 20. The film, which also stars Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake and Ben Kingsley, features Myers as Pitka, an American left as a child at the gates of an ashram in India. Pitka becomes a self-help guru who tries to smooth the marital rift of a hockey star and his wife.

Myers, a native of Ontario, says he wrote the film because of his interests in Eastern philosophy and hockey. But he isn't the type to zip out a script the moment an idea hits.

"I enjoy having the Lamaze birthing process of it," says Myers, who also authored the Wayne's World and Austin Powers franchises. "It usually takes me three, 3½ years in between characters."

Why so long? He's very protective of his original live-action characters. "I've written and created everything I've done, and it takes me a year to reflect on what I've done, a year to let the idea incubate and a year to create" a new character.

For Pitka, that included playing a philosopher of Eastern religion in New York and Los Angeles, where some unsuspecting passersby sought advice from Myers, who never broke from character.

"They asked some very spiritual and deep questions," he says. "It's been fascinating combining comedy with a nice life-affirming message."

Fascinating, if challenging. He knows combining comedy, hockey and Eastern principles is a little "like figuring out how they got the peanut butter in the chocolate and the chocolate in the peanut butter."

But he didn't expect the Wayne's World or Austin Powers films to be successes, either.

"When I did Wayne's World, I thought you had to grow up in my neighborhood to get it," he says. "When I did Austin, I thought you had to grow up in my house to get it, because my parents are from Liverpool. But I've been very lucky to create things people have liked, so I have to stay true to the things that interest me."

Goulet sedated while awaiting transplant

LAS VEGAS - Singer and actor Robert Goulet is heavily sedated and breathing through a respirator in a Los Angeles hospital while he awaits a lung transplant, his wife told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "He can hear me but he can't respond," Vera Goulet said of the 73-year-old crooner.

Vera Goulet said doctors told her the lung transplants are the most successful operation of any transplant, with a success rate of 88 percent. A suitable donor has yet to be found, she said.

"God willing, if we proceed with this, our doctors feel that there's no reason he will not have at least 15 years of life doing what he does, going back on stage and singing," she said. "That's very encouraging."

The singer fell ill when flying home to Las Vegas after performing at a Sept. 20 concert in Syracuse, N.Y., his wife said. Doctors initially assumed it was some kind of bug, but he got weaker until he had to be rushed to the hospital 10 days later, she said.

Goulet was diagnosed with a form of pulmonary fibrosis that his official Web site described as a "rapidly progressive and fatal condition." He was transported to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles as a transplant patient Oct. 13.

Speaking by phone from the hospital, Vera Goulet said doctors inserted a breathing tube down her husband's throat and sedated him, and that they were last able to speak two weeks ago.

"He said, 'Just give me a new pair of lungs and I'll hit the high notes until I'm 100,'" she said.

"I told him I loved him. He told me he loves me. He was ready to have the tube inserted. And he said, 'Just watch my vocal cords.'" The couple's 25th wedding anniversary was Oct. 17.

Meanwhile, she said, fans and performers have been calling and e-mailing from around the world, including comedian Jerry Lewis, actress Suzanne Somers and singer Harry Connick Jr., she said.

"Tony Orlando called and said, 'Give him a punch in the stomach for me,'" she said.

Goulet, born to French-Canadian parents in Lawrence, Mass., has won acclaim for a Broadway career that took off after his debut performance as Sir Lancelot in "Camelot" in 1960. Goulet's multiple appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show" helped make him a star.

Goulet won a Grammy Award in 1962 for Best New Artist and a Tony Award in 1968 for his role in "The Happy Time."

Over the years, Goulet continued to perform onstage.

His illness forced the cancellation of planned performances in Denver and a commercial TV shoot, Vera Goulet said.

'Sopranos' creator defends famous finale

NEW YORK - Just when we had made our peace with "The Sopranos" finale and moved on with our lives, David Chase has stirred things up again.

Breaking his silence months after the HBO mob drama ended its run, he is offering a belated explanation for that blackout at the restaurant. He strongly suggests that, no, Tony Soprano didn't get whacked moments later as he munched onion rings with his family at Holsten's. And mostly Chase wonders why so many viewers got so worked up over the series' non-finish.

"There WAS a war going on that week, and attempted terror attacks in London," says Chase. "But these people were talking about onion rings."

The interview, included in "`The Sopranos': The Complete Book," published this week, finds Chase exasperated by viewers who were upset that Tony didn't meet explicit doom.

Chase says the New Jersey mob boss "had been people's alter ego. They had gleefully watched him rob, kill, pillage, lie and cheat. They had cheered him on. And then, all of a sudden, they wanted to see him punished for all that. They wanted 'justice'...

"The pathetic thing — to me — was how much they wanted HIS blood, after cheering him on for eight years."

In the days, and even weeks, after the finale aired June 10, "Sopranos" wonks combed that episode for buried clues, concocting wild theories. (Was this some sort of "Last Supper" reimagined with Tony, wife Carmela, son A.J. and daughter Meadow?)

Chase insists that what you saw (and didn't see) is what you get.

"There are no esoteric clues in there. No `Da Vinci Code,'" he declares.

He says it's "just great" if fans tried to find a deeper meaning, but "most of them, most of us, should have done this kind of thing in high school English class and didn't."

He defends the bleak, seemingly inconclusive ending as appropriate — and even a little hopeful.

A.J. will "probably be a low-level movie producer. But he's not going to be a killer like his father, is he? Meadow may not become a pediatrician or even a lawyer ... but she'll learn to operate in the world in ways that Carmela never did.

"It's not ideal. It's not what the parents dreamed of. But it's better than it was," Chase says.

And as for that notorious blackout in the middle of the Journey power ballad, "Don't Stop Believin'"?

"Originally, I didn't want any credits at all," says Chase. "I just wanted the black screen to go the length of the credits — all the way to the HBO `whoosh' sound. But the Directors Guild wouldn't give us a waiver."

And while this unexpected finish left lots of viewers thinking their cable service was on the fritz, Chase insists it wasn't meant as a prank.

"Why would we want to do that?" he asks. "Why would we entertain people for eight years only to give them the finger?"

New CD Releases, Oct. 23: Carrie Underwood, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Gary Allan

Carrie Underwood "Carnival Ride"

Country star Carrie Underwood is ready to take fans on a "Carnival Ride." This set follows her 2005 debut, "Some Hearts," an award-winning, multi-platinum offering that spawned the crossover hits "Jesus Take the Wheel," "Before He Cheats," "Wasted" and "Don't Forget to Remember Me."

"Carnival Ride" was produced by Mark Bright, who helmed seven tracks on "Some Hearts," and includes Underwood in the songwriting credits.

It's already been a big year for the fourth-season "American Idol" winner. She scored two Grammys--Best New Artist and Best Female Country Vocal Performance--and is the reigning Female Vocalist of the Year for both the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music.

Underwood is also up for three trophies at the 41st Annual Country Music Association Awards, which will be held Nov. 7 at the Sommet Center in Nashville, TN, and aired live on ABC-TV.

* * *
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss "Raising Sand"

Talk about an unlikely pairing--Robert Plant and Alison Krauss recording a studio effort together? Yet, that's exactly what fans will get with "Raising Sand."

The story of this project began when former Led Zeppelin frontman Plant phoned contemporary bluegrass star Krauss about seven years ago to tell her he admired her work and wanted to work with her someday. The duo first sang together at a Leadbelly tribute during the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, and eventually enlisted producer T-Bone Burnett to help them record together.

The resulting 13-track "Raising Sand" covers a wide spectrum of musical territory, according to the project's publicist, including R&B, blues, country and folk.

* * *
Gary Allan "Living Hard"

Country singer Gary Allan is looking for a three-peat with "Living Hard." His last two releases--this year's "Greatest Hits" and 2005's "Tough All Over"--both hit No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart.

Allan is supporting "Living Hard" by living on the road. He's doing some solo dates, but mostly spending his time as the opening act on Keith Urban's big road show. The Urban run lasts throughout November and well into December.

* * *
Dwight Yoakam "Dwight Sings Buck"

The country crooner tips his tall cowboy hat to one of his musical idols (and close friends) on "Dwight Sings Buck." Yoakam collaborated with Buck Owens on numerous occasions over the years, most famously on the hit "Streets of Bakersfield," so this is a tribute record that really makes sense. On "Dwight Sings Buck," Yoakam handles such tunes as "Foolin' Around," "Act Naturally" and "Above and Beyond."

* * *
Serj Tankian "Elect the Dead"

System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian walks the solo road with the grimly titled "Elect the Dead." Tankian produced the album himself and played most of the instruments on the set, though he was joined by guest drummers John Dolmayan (System of a Down) and Brian "Brain" Mantia (Primus). The album's first single is "Empty Walls." The singer is supporting the record during a North American tour, currently set to wind up Oct. 28 in San Francisco.

* * *
More new releases:
Coheed & Cambria, "No World For Tomorrow" (Sony)
David Gahan, "Hourglass" (Mute)
Exodus, "The Atrocity Exhibition: Exhibit A" (Nuclear Blast)
Heart, "Dreamboat Annie Live" (Shout)
Helloween, "Gambling With the Devil" (Steamhammer)
Juanes, "La Vida... Es un Ratico" (Universal)
Scum of the Earth, "Sleaze Freak" (Eclipse)
Seether, "Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces" (Wind-Up)
Soilwork, "Sworn to a Great Divide" (Nuclear Blast)
Nick Swardson, "Party" (Comedy Central)
Ween, "La Cucaracha" (Rounder)
Rob Zombie, "Zombie Live" (Geffen)

Soundtracks and scores:
"Battlestar Galactica Season 3" (La-La Land)
"Twin Peaks: All New Season Two Music" (Absurda)

Larry David's divorce mirrored on 'Curb'

NEW YORK - In the exaggerated mirror to Larry David's life that is "Curb Your Enthusiasm," even the comedian's own divorce is fodder for comedy.

Sunday night's episode of the HBO show was a classic case of art imitating life with the announcement by David's fictional spouse, played by Cheryl Hines, that she was leaving. It was just in June that David and his real-life wife, Laurie David, separated after 14 years of marriage.

The real-life divorce was filed by Laurie David, citing "irreconcilable differences." Their spokesman has called the split "very amicable." On "Curb," the breakup was set off when Cheryl called hysterically from a potentially crashing airplane. Larry told her to "call back in 10 minutes" because he was having their Tivo fixed by a cable guy.

Safe but still rattled, Cheryl returned to declare: "I'm leaving, Larry. I can't do this anymore."

"People ask me all the time, `How do you stay with him?'" she explained. "I always tell them, `There's another side to Larry that you don't see.' And then I just realized today, there's no other side."

Larry argued to no avail that the phone reception was bad and, besides, he was able to save her Tivoed shows like "Top Chef" and "Project Runway." The rest of the episode finds the couple's friends (some of whom are the REAL couple's friends), choosing sides between either Larry or Cheryl.

David has always pursued a realistic brand of comedy that pulls directly from life. He and Jerry Seinfeld created the NBC classic "Seinfeld" one night at a New York grocery, where they decided that their casual banter should be the show — famously referred to as "a show about nothing."

Even that moment was eventually portrayed on "Seinfeld" when Jerry and George (the character based on David, played by Jason Alexander) decide to create a sitcom for NBC.

The origins of "Curb" were similar. While preparing for a comedy special on HBO, David's friend and comedian Jeff Garlin suggested that David have the entire process filmed.

A loosely scripted, naturalistic approach is now the "Curb" signature. Though his character bears his name and much of his life, David has always said it's an exaggeration — who he might be if he had no manners or restraint.

Whether David's divorce would be reflected on "Curb" had been a matter of speculation. In an interview with The Associated Press in early September (after the season wrapped but before it hit the air), David played cagy when asked if his marital woes would seep into the show.

"Can't fire Cheryl," he replied.

Asked if perhaps the fictional couple might feel increased discord, if not collapse, David said: "There's something there, obviously. I wouldn't shy away from dealing with it, if I do another year."

Now David's divorce has made its presence felt, and the following episodes will help determine whether his on-screen marriage still has any chance. A spokesman for HBO said the split would indeed constitute a full arc.

Both Larry and Laurie David, in real life, declined to comment.

CBS cancels Jackman's 'Viva Laughlin'

LOS ANGELES - The music has stopped for "Viva Laughlin," an offbeat song-and-dance drama that drew such low ratings it was canceled by CBS after two airings.

Even having film star Hugh Jackman ("X-Men") aboard as executive producer and cast member couldn't save the series. It was the second cancellation of the young season, after CW's "Online Nation," and the first scripted show to be yanked.

"Viva Laughlin," based on the hit British series "Viva Blackpool," debuted last Thursday with 8.4 million viewers — a pittance compared to the 21.2 million viewers that watched the CBS show preceding it, top-rated "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation."

Moving to what was intended as its regular time slot, 8 p.m. EST Sunday, "Viva Laughlin" dropped to an estimated 6.8 million viewers. The show starring Lloyd Owen as a small-time gambler caught up in a murder investigation drew mostly drew largely poor reviews.

It will be replaced next Sunday by a "CSI" rerun, with reality series "The Amazing Race" then taking over the time period, CBS (part of CBS Corp.) said Monday.

Singer May Be Done With Superman

It’s happening again. Bryan Singer may have just handed Brett Ratner, or his cinematic equivalent another superhero franchise to ruin. Variety is reporting that Superman Returns writers Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris have opted not to return to write the film’s sequel.

That in itself isn’t a major blow for the project, after all Singer could be going on without them. What’s worrying is that Variety article seems to be hinting that the WB may be looking to start completely over with Superman (though Warners denies it), and pretend the other movie never existed, as they’re doing with Hulk. If that’s really what’s happening, then forget about Bryan Singer being involved.

The baffling thing here is that despite all the panic surrounding its box office totals, Superman Returns was a hit. It made just as much money as Batman Begins, which has now spawned another film helmed by Chris Nolan and backed entirely by the studio. Superman Returns cost more to make, but a large portion of that cost had nothing to do with the actual movie and was carried over by previous, failed efforts to make the movie happen. Superman Returns is not Hulk, and starting over with it seems not just ridiculous, but sot of insulting to the huge audiences who showed up to see it.

You have to wonder if this has something to do with Singer’s slowness to get started on making the sequel. Warner Brothers was all for it, then Singer took a bunch of other projects instead of getting his ass in gear to make the blue boy fly again. Right now he’s working on Tom Cruise’s Nazi movie Valkyrie for United Artsits when Warners would almost certainly like to have him doing pre-production for Supes with them. Assuming Singer was actually serious about wanting to do it. Lately it hasn’t seemed like it.

He did the same thing on X-Men 3, delaying on doing anything with it while he loaded up other projects to do first. Eventually Fox got sick of waiting for him, they never got a deal done, and the studio grabbed the first jerk they could find to direct it. The result was the awful Brett Ratner soiling of the once great X-Men franchise. Ratner has always wanted to get his hands on Superman, somewhere out there he’s smiling.

For now though, there’s nothing definitive. Hopefully this is all wrong-headed rumor and conjecture. We need more Superman, but more importantly we need more of Bryan Singer’s brilliant Superman. If he’s not involved and if it’s not a sequel to Returns, then forget it. Nobody is interested, you’re only pissing on the character. Apparently there’s a worse word in the cinematic language than “remake” or “prequel”. It’s “reboot” and it’s kryptonite for Superman. For now though, no reason to panic. The official word is that this is still a sequel and as far as anyone knows Singer will be back. Get to work Bryan!

H.I.M. to do next Bond theme?

Rumors are swirling that H.I.M are set to do the theme song for the next James Bond film.

The composers David Arnold and Don Black were allegedly impressed by the band's track "Wings Of A Butterfly."

The duo allegedly got chatting to the frontman Ville Valo at the BMI Awards.

A source told The Daily Star: "David Arnold and Don Black were in deep conversation with Ville on the night. They love the song that won him an award. They think he has just the right ear to write a classic Bond hit with them.

Lessing says Sept. 11 attacks not so bad

MADRID, Spain - Nobel laureate Doris Lessing said the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States were "not that terrible" when compared with attacks by the IRA in Britain.

"September 11 was terrible, but if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible," the Nobel Literature Prize winner told the leading Spanish daily El Pais.

"Some Americans will think I'm crazy. Many people died, two prominent buildings fell, but it was neither as terrible nor as extraordinary as they think. They're a very naive people, or they pretend to be," she said in an interview published Sunday.

"Do you know what people forget? That the IRA attacked with bombs against our government; it killed several people while a Conservative congress was being held and in which the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, was (attending). People forget," she said.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the Sept. 11 attacks. About 3,700 died and tens of thousands of people were maimed in more than 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland. The Irish Republican Army guerrilla group, which caused most of the deaths, disarmed in 2005.

Attempts by The Associated Press to reach Lessing in London for comment Monday were unsuccessful. Her agent's office said the author was unavailable because she was not feeling well.

In the El Pais interview, Lessing had sharp words for both President Bush and his ally, former British premier Tony Blair.

"I always hated Tony Blair, from the beginning," El Pais quoted Lessing as saying. "Many of us hated Tony Blair, I think he has been a disaster for Britain and we have suffered him for many years. I said it when he was elected: This man is a little showman who is going to cause us problems and he did."

"As for Bush, he's a world calamity," added Lessing. "Everyone is tired of this man. Either he is stupid or he is very clever, although you have to remember he is a member of a social class which has profited from wars."

Iran also came in for a lashing from Lessing, who was born to British parents who were living in what is now Bakhtaran, Iran.

"I hate Iran, I hate the Iranian government, it's a cruel and evil government," she was quoted as saying.

"Look what happened to its president in New York, they called him evil and cruel in Colombia University. Marvelous! They should have said more to him! Nobody criticizes him, because of oil."

The author of dozens of works from short stories to science fiction, including the classic "The Golden Notebook," Lessing won the Nobel Prize for literature earlier this month. She was praised by the judges for her "skepticism, fire and visionary power."

Manitobans sweep WCMAs

MOOSE JAW, Sask. - Music artists from Manitoba took home the most hardware at the Western Canadian Music Awards presented Sunday night in Moose Jaw, Sask., capturing eight trophies.

Among them was country band Doc Walker, who won outstanding independent album of the year and dedicated the win to leader singer Chris Thorsteinson's mother, Betty, who died last week.

"She was the backbone basically of this band I think from the beginning," said guitarist Murray Pulver.

Pulver half-joked that the band might be "a mess" without Betty Thorsteinson.

"She took care of day-to-day things that the rest of us would not be aware of and was really sort of the heart and soul of a lot of it ... the whole business part of it. She was passionate about music too."

Doc Walker also snagged the trophy for outstanding country recording and seemed surprised by the double win.

"It's always unexpected," said Doc Walker's Dave Wasyliw.

"I think after the CCMAs and things like that we realized that anything can happen and you should probably have a speech in your pocket, but you don't. You don't listen to yourself that's for sure," laughed Wasyliw.

"You never learn. You go up there and you fumble your way through it."

In September, Doc Walker took album of the year honours at the Canadian Country Music Awards held in nearby Regina.

Other Manitobans to win Sunday night included Romi Mayes, who won outstanding roots recording solo and songwriter of the year. The quartet Nathan - which had five nominations - won outstanding roots recording duo or group for their album "Key Principles."

"It feels great, 'cause we're just gonna continue to pump out what we do so if people are willing to put up with it ..." singer and guitarist Shelley Marshall said, adding a laugh.

"It's awesome, we're really happy."

Lead singer and guitarist Keri Latimer echoed those comments, saying it's nice to know Nathan is still resonating with the audience.

Not to be outdone by Manitoba, artists from British Columbia followed with six awards. Among them, Joel Kroeker won outstanding pop recording and Jim Byrnes won outstanding blues recording. Neither was in attendance.

Saskatchewan-born The Blood Lines made their home province proud, capturing the award for outstanding rock recording.

The awards, held at the Snowbirds Hangar 6, opened with an emotional presentation as Buffy Sainte-Marie was honoured with her induction into the Western Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

With a career spanning more than 40 years and numerous international awards, honours and platinum recordings to her credit, Sainte-Marie proudly remembered her roots.

"I'm very proud, very proud to be a working musician from Western Canada," Sainte-Marie told the crowd, which gave her a standing ovation.

"I've had a lifetime of going back-and-forth from Canada, across Canada, through Canada and I'm so very proud of the traditions that are coming to light so that all Canadians might understand and appreciate the music that comes from this area."

Regina's Queen City Kids were also honoured with an induction into the Western Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

This year's awards ceremony saw Nelly Furtado, Diana Krall and Jann Arden all receive international achievement awards. All three accepted their honours via pre-recorded video.

The Western Canadian Music Awards recognizes and celebrates the best recording artists from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, B.C. and the Yukon in 18 categories.

Here is the list of winners from the Western Canadian Music Awards presented Sunday night in Moose Jaw, Sask.:

Outstanding Aboriginal Recording: Leela Gilday, Sedze.

Outstanding Blues Recording: Jim Byrnes, House of Refuge.

Outstanding Children's Recording: Pied Pumkin, Pumkids.

Outstanding Christian Recording: Fresh I.E., The Warren Project.

Outstanding Classical Composition: Owen Underhill., Canzone di Petra.

Outstanding Classical Recording: James Ehnes, Barber Korngold Walton.

Outstanding Country Recording: Doc Walker, Doc Walker.

Outstanding Francophone Recording:Johnny Cajun, Johnny Cajun.

Outstanding Instrumental Recording: Moses Mayes, Second Ring.

Outstanding Jazz Recording: Kent Sangster, Obsession.

Outstanding Pop Recording: Joel Kroeker, Closer To The Flame.

Outstanding Rock Recording: The Blood Lines, The Blood Lines.

Outstanding Roots Recording, Duo/Group: Nathan, Key Principles.

Outstanding Roots Recording, Solo: Romi Mayes, Sweet Somethin' Steady.

Outstanding Urban Recording: Skavenjah, El Ritmo de la Vida.

Outstanding Album/Independent Artist: Doc Walker, Doc Walker.

Songwriter of the Year: Romi Mayes, Sweet Somethin' Steady.

Video of the Year: Kris Demeanor, I Have Seen The Future.

International Achievement Awards: Jann Arden, Nelly Furtado, Diana Krall.

Hall of Fame: Buffy Sainte-Marie, Queen City Kids.

"Christmas" comes early for Jim Carrey

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter)- Jim Carrey will star in a special effects-heavy adaptation of "A Christmas Carol," which Robert Zemeckis will direct for Walt Disney Pictures.

Carrey will play Scrooge, the ghost of Christmas past, the ghost of Christmas present and the ghost of Christmas future.

Production will incorporate performance capture, and blend live action and computer-generated imagery, building on techniques used for Zemeckis' "The Polar Express" and upcoming "Beowulf," as well as "Monster House," which he executive produced with Steven Spielberg.

Zemeckis wrote the screenplay for the film, which will be made for a 3-D stereoscopic release. A release date has not been set.

Several Web sites have reported that Bob Hoskins -- who worked with Zemeckis on "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" -- might play Mr. Fezziwig in the film, but Disney said no official dealmaking has begun with the British actor.

Carrey's upcoming projects include "Ripley's Believe It or Not," and providing the voice of Horton for the animated film "Horton Hears a Who." His more recent credits include "The Number 23" and "Fun With Dick and Jane."

Loverboy back with new album

TORONTO - OK, so the tight leather pants are now just plain too tight and the bandana headband would only serve to hide a receding hairline.

But that cheeseball grin is spread wide across Mike Reno's face and it's obvious that this Loverboy still loves a good party, and even relishes the '80s shmaltz that has come to define him.

The iconic performer, whose bombastic delivery with rock band Loverboy dominated the charts for a good chunk of that decade, is ready with the zingers when asked if he still has the red leather pants he was once known for.

"Absolutely, I have them on right now," Reno quips while seated at a downtown lounge, suggesting they are under the faded jeans he's wearing with a black cowboy shirt, half open to reveal a black wife-beater.

"They're actually red leather cut-offs."

It's been a quarter century since such attire actually induced screams of approval, but Loverboy's hefty catalogue of '80s anthems have kept the Canadian band on a steady tour circuit of casinos and state fairs on both sides of the border.

Hits such as "Turn Me Loose," "The Kid Is Hot Tonite," "Working for the Weekend," "Lovin' Every Minute of It" and "Heaven in Your Eyes" continue to pop up in movie soundtracks and TV shows, making sure a new generation of beer-swilling college kids learn how to do the rock 'n' roll swagger right, complete with crumpled-rock-singer-face.

Today, Reno says he's excited to be talking about new material for a change - Loverboy's first new album in a decade.

"Which is a long time," he admits. "I think we were ready for it because we had some things to say and we needed to get it out.

"There's a lot of water under the bridge, we lost a couple guys along the way, a few wives have come and gone between the bunch of us. A lot of things happened but we've settled into a nice place. We feel good."

The 10-track "Just Getting Started" covers familiar territory for the straight-ahead rock group, also made up of guitarist Paul Dean, keyboardist Doug Johnson, drummer Matt Frenette and bassist Ken (Spider) Sinnaeve.

Reno says they were conscious of maintaining Loverboy's distinctive sound while seeking a fresh edge.

At the same time, he admits it's been tough for the band to survive in the face of changing tastes and rocky times.

They enjoyed a quick ride to the top when they formed in Calgary in 1980, unleashing a steady stream of hit albums that kept them soaring through most of the decade.

But then radio dropped the rock 'n' roll classic format and the band was forced into a "break" in the early '90s, Reno says. Things hit bottom with 1997's failed album "Six" - a mistake in many ways, Reno admits.

"We did a record that we didn't really believe in and the timing was kind of all wrong," he says. "It was almost like it was a forced issue and we really didn't put a lot of effort into it, not enough effort for it to be a substantial hit."

Reno gripes that the record company they used - now defunct - was more interested in adding Loverboy to its roster than supporting any kind of lasting work.

"We were kind of tired and it showed. Sometimes when you get exhausted you don't even know you're exhausted, you just go, 'OK, let's do it and get it over with.' "

Tensions in the band were also making th