The Couch Potato Report - May 31st, 2008

This week The Couch Potato Report peels the WHA, the fall of the Roman Empire, and we remember a great director.

There will be a lot of remembering this week here on The Report, and we will start that with the HOT POTATO by remembering the World Hockey Association.

I am sure that you know that the WHA operated from 1972 to 1979, and I am also quite sure that you know that after the 1978-79 season the Edmonton Oilers, New England Whalers, Quebec Nordiques, and Winnipeg Jets joined the National Hockey League, so I won't spend any time this morning recapping the league's history.

Instead, let me add to the knowledge and memories you have by telling you that THE WHA CHRONICLES - a 3 DVD Set celebrating the league - is now available and it includes three full games, including Game Six of the Avco Cup final between the Oilers and Jets at Winnipeg Arena.

And for you trivia buffs...here is the answer to the question: Who scored the last ever goal in the WHA?

Yes, Dave Semenko scored the final goal in WHA history, even while a man who is the most renowned goal scorer in the history of hockey was also on the ice.

This set also lets us see the WHA play of some other very familiar names, and Hockey Hall Of Famers in their own right.

Including a certain, Mr. Hockey!!

In addition to the games, this Limited Edition set also has a six minute fight reel, a feature on the history of the league, all new interviews with Bobby Hull and Wayne Gretzky, and much more!

THE WHA CHRONICLES isn't an all-encompassing history lesson on this onetime rival to the NHL, but since many of it's games were never shown on television, or even filmed, it does a great job preserving what is available.

This is a great DVD Set, whether you remember the WHA yourself, or have just heard about it for years.

Now while are remembering...hey, remember when John Cusack made fantastic films?

In movies like SAY ANYTHING, HIGH FIDELITY, GROSS POINTE BLANK, ONE CRAZY SUMMER, BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, and THE SURE THING Cusack was so good playing an unconventional hero that you couldn't imagine anyone else playing the roles.

But as I mentioned a few weeks ago when I spoke about Cusack's film MARTIAN CHILD, he seems to have lost his way of late, picking films that just don't work, and the results have been some really bad movies.

Sadly, that downward trend continues with GRACE IS GONE.

In this well-meaning movie Cusack plays a man who's wife dies in Iraq, and he just can't bring himself to tell that to his two young daughters...so he takes them on a trip.

GRACE IS GONE has some touching moments, but it is lacking in emotion. A woman, a mother, a soldier has died, and since the movie doesn't let us meet her, there is no real emotional attachement to that death, however meaningful it might be.

Plus, there are more than a few scenes in the film that don't seem to really fit in with the rest of the story, and the end result is a film that I just can't recommend.

I don't necessarily blame John Cusack for the failure of GRACE IS GONE....I just wish he could remember how solid his choices used to be, and try to find a film worthy of his talent...and legacy.

Nope, when it comes to John Cusack films, he doesn't make 'em like he used to.

And when it comes to Hollywood and epic motion pictures, they don't make 'em like they used to!!

Hey, remember the good old days of filmmaking?

Well, if you do, and you miss them, THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE is one from that era!!

This is one of those classic films that had me saying: "They don't make them like this anymore!!"

THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE is a 1964 epic film that stars legendary Canadian actor Christopher Plummer, the always beautiful Sophia Loren, Sir Alec Guinness, James Mason, Omar Sharif, and a cast of thousands.

THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE features the glory, the greed and grandeur that was Rome, all recreated and filmed for you to enjoy.

The film was a financial failure at the box-office, and at three hours it is a bit long....but it remains one of the great screen epics and it is finally available on DVD for the first time in a digitally remastered 3-DVD deluxe edition.

Nope, "They don't make them like this anymore!!" and as a film fan who remembers when they did, that is too bad.

Up next this week is DARFUR NOW. And this film serves to remind us that while we get to enjoy a mostly peace filled life, (START THE CLIP NEW!!) there are others who don't.

There have been so many unbelievable things have happened to the people of Sudan over the course of the past decade - that it is getting more difficult every day to fathom the suffering caused by the ongoing civil war and burgeoning ethnic strife.

DARFUR NOW is not a completely compelling documentary, but it does succeed at shedding more light on the region, and clarifying the ongoing conflict as it offers up inspirational stories of regular people - and celebrities like Don Cheadle and George Clooney - who have actually made a difference there...and here.

If you want to see DARFUR NOW, you can actually buy it for about $8. And by buying it for just a few dollars more than it would cost you to rent it, after you've seen it, you can pass it on to others to watch.

Finally this week, it had been my intention to begin this year's FOREIGN FILM FESTIVAL ON DVD back this week, as an alternative to the action filled, very loud, check-your-brain-at-the-door summer movie season.

But on Monday, a great filmmaker and actor passed away, so I will tell you about the Dutch film WAITER next week.

This week, we remember and celebrate Academy Award-winning director Sydney Pollack who died on Monday at the age of 73.

Pollack was a Hollywood mainstay who achieved commercial success and critical acclaim with films like THE FIRM, THE WAY WE WERE, ABSENSE OF MALICE, THE ELECTRIC HORSEMAN, BOBBY DEERFIELD, THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR, the period drama OUT OF AFRICA, and the gender-bending comedy TOOTSIE.

In addition to his work as a director, Sydney was also an actor, having recently appeared on the TV shows WILL & GRACE and THE SOPRANOS an dthe films MADE OF HONOUR and MICHAEL CLAYTON.

Pollack died of cancer Monday afternoon at his home in Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles, and he was surrounded by family.

I have been surrounded by his work for as long as I can remember, and I will always be a fan.

Sydney Pollack, thank you for the movies and memories! May you rest in peace!!


Sydney Pollack's TOOTISE, MICHAEL CLAYTON, OUT OF AFRICA, THE WAY WE WERE and many of his other films are all available now on DVD, along with the new releases GRACE IS GONE, THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, DARFUR NOW, and the great, limited edition, 3-DVD Set - THE WHA CHRONICLES.

Coming up on the next Couch Potato Report

THE WILD HORSE REDEMPTION is a film about hardened criminals who are given 90 days to tame wild mustangs.

THE BRONX IS BURNING is the television mini-series that features baseball's triumph over the turmoil and hysteria of the summer of 1977 in New York City.

SEMI-PRO is the latest sports comedy from Will Ferrell

Also next week, VINCE VAUGHN'S WILD WEST SHOW is a documentary about Vaughn and four stand-up comedians living on a bus and performing in 30 cities.

And if you need an alternative to the action filled, very loud, check-your-brain-at-the-door summer movie, well, once again next week I will give you one as THE FOREIGN FILM FESTIVAL ON DVD returns with the Dutch film WAITER!

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!

"Sex and the City" tickets sell at brisk pace

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - With Friday's opening of "Sex and the City" shaping up as a big girls-night-out event at U.S. movie theaters, industry analysts say the film seems poised to set a new box office standard for "chick flicks."

Estimates for the film's first weekend in North America range from $25 million to $40 million, and one leading tracking service, Los Angeles-based Media By Numbers, estimated a Friday-through-Sunday tally in the mid-$30 millions.

Online ticket retailer Fandango reported "Sex and the City" was accounting for 90 percent of its advance sales, with tickets being snapped up at the rate of seven per second.

"At this fast pace, we expect to sell out more than 1,000 'Sex and the City' showtimes by day's end," said Fandango CEO Rick Butler. "The advance ticket sales are nothing short of extraordinary for a female-driven comedy-drama."

"Sex" already has grossed nearly $12 million in overseas business since mid-week, including more than $7 million in Britain, nearly $3 million in Germany and $1.3 million in France, according to studio figures.

The film is based on the hit HBO television series of the same name starring Sarah Jessica Parker as a fashion-conscious, Manhattan magazine columnist, Carrie Bradshaw, writing about urban romance and the singles scene.

Carrie and her three best pals -- Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha -- are all picking up their lives where they left off when the TV show went off the air in 2004.

An online survey of more than 10,000 moviegoers buying tickets from Fandango found that 94 percent were women, and that 67 percent planned to attend the movie this weekend with a group of female friends.

That translates to a lot of women swarming theaters after downing Cosmopolitans -- a favored cocktail of the "Sex and the City" women -- notwithstanding early mixed reviews.

"It might be a really fun place to be for guys this weekend at the theater, because the ratio of women to men is going to be huge, said Paul Dergarabedian, head of Media By Numbers.

But Brandon Gray, president of the movie Web site Box Office Mojo, said the commercial potential may be limited by a promotional campaign aimed primarily at the devoted but finite female fan base of the TV show.

"Because the marketing is preaching to the converted, one wonders whether it will have legs beyond the opening," Gray told Reuters.

The film opens in nearly 3,300 North American theaters. Perhaps the closest comparison for a female-skewing, fashion-themed, big-screen "dramedy" set in New York is "The Devil Wears Prada," which opened in more than 2,800 theaters in 2006 with $27.5 million its first weekend.

That film went on to gross $124.8 million in its domestic run, Dergarabedian said.

But "Devil" was aimed at younger audiences, whereas "Sex and the City" is targeted at moviegoers aged 17 and older.

Moreover, "Sex and the City" is expected to play second fiddle this weekend to blockbuster holdover "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," which grossed over $100 million from its first Friday-through-Sunday frame, Dergarabedian said.

Even if "Indiana Jones" drops 50 percent in its second weekend -- a typical decline for many big Hollywood action movies -- the bullwhip-cracking archeologist is likely to easily eclipse the four Cosmo-swilling girls from the city.

Brangelina rents French villa; twin births denied

CORRENS, France - The Brangelina clan began settling into a villa in the south of France as reports that the couple's twins had been born were refuted by other celebrity news outlets.

"Entertainment Tonight" first reported on its Web site Friday that Angelina Jolie had given birth in France, citing a "source close to Jolie." Then People magazine posted a story online saying that Jolie had not given birth, and E! and US Weekly followed with their own stories saying the babies remained unborn.

"Entertainment Tonight" did not immediately return a call for comment; visitors to the show's Web site saw a blank screen or a message that read "technical difficulties."

Representatives for Jolie and her companion, Brad Pitt, did not respond to phone and e-mail requests from The Associated Press.

Jolie has said previously that her twins are due in August. She and Pitt have four other children: 6-year-old Maddox, 4-year-old Pax and 3-year-old Zahara, who are adopted, and 2-year-old Shiloh.

In southern France, where locals say the couple recently moved, officials at the Etoile Maternite Catholique de Provence in Aix-en-Provence, one of the region's top maternity clinics, said that Jolie had not been there and did not appear scheduled to come.

Privacy rules about health matters are extremely strict in France.

The pair recently moved into the Miraval Estate villa in the French hamlet of Correns, in the Provence region, according to the mayor and a local inn owner.

Traditionally, the region has lured tourists mostly for rock-climbing excursions on the rolling hills of the verdant region and leisurely strolls in its quaint medieval villages.

Mayor Michael Latz trumpets Correns as France's first town where all locally grown produce is organic — and his villagers teem with pride about that reputation, and seem mostly bemused about the invasion of Hollywood buzz.

"I like to joke that I'm happy to be able to contribute to the image of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, because Correns is so well known," Mayor Michael Latz said with a smile outside the ochre-colored town hall.

Latz said that Tom Bove, an American businessman who owns Miraval, recently told him that Jolie and Pitt had agreed to a three-year lease on the property, known for producing high-quality organic wine.

The couple is "in the process of moving in," said Latz, adding that he hadn't met them and knew nothing about whether Jolie had given birth or not.

"They are people who I hope will live normally here," he said. "I would think the choice of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie ... is tied to the quality of life in Correns."

Latz also rejected speculation about an imminent wedding, and said that under French law they'd need to alert local authorities if they want to officially tie the knot here.

Security guards were blocking the gates to the estate Friday, while a postal truck and other maintenance vehicles regularly passed in and out. The castle and accompanying buildings can't be seen from public roads.

Onno Stijl, owner of the L'Auberge du Parc inn, said it was a good thing they were moving in and could help business. He said he gets his wine from the estate's vineyards.

"It's a couple living here now like everyone," he said.

The area, he said, "is a bit isolated but that gives it a certain ... privacy."

According to its Web site, the Miraval estate dates from pre-Roman times. It includes fountains, aqueducts, moats, a lake and vineyards that produce an organic wine distributed worldwide.

Pitt and Jolie may be Miraval's first movie stars in residence, but Miraval has seen its share of rock stars. The estate includes a studio which has hosted the likes of Sting, the Cranberries and Pink Floyd, who recorded tracks for "The Wall" album there.

Eddie Murphy back in 'Beverly Hills'

On the heels of the successful revival of the "Indiana Jones" franchise, Paramount has set in motion a fourth installment of "Beverly Hills Cop."

Eddie Murphy is attached to reprise his role as Detroit detective Axel Foley, and Brett Ratner is negotiating to direct.

Studio is aiming for a 2009 production start and a summer 2010 release.

Lorenzo di Bonaventura will produce. Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced the original "Beverly Hills Cop" trilogy with late partner Don Simpson, won't be actively involved in the new film.

Murphy approached the studio about reviving the franchise that cemented his status as a B.O. mega-star. Par brass were eager to land another picture with Murphy after he finished the Karey Kirkpatrick-directed "NowhereLand," which Paramount releases in June 2009.

That film was also produced by Di Bonaventura, who is working on the summer 2009 releases "G.I. Joe" and "Transformers 2."

The studio canvassed a number of directors before choosing Ratner. A writer will be hired shortly.

Released in 1984, the original "Beverly Hills Cop" grossed $316 million worldwide and spawned two sequels. All told, the three pics grossed $712.9 million worldwide. The last was released in 1994.

Murphy is currently toplining the Brian Robbins-directed "A Thousand Words" for DreamWorks.

Ratner has been developing the Hugh Hefner biopic "Playboy" for Universal and Imagine.

Wife of entertainer Bill Murray files for divorce

CHARLESTON, S.C. - The wife of entertainer Bill Murray has filed for divorce after nearly 11 years of marriage, alleging he abused her and is addicted to marijuana and alcohol.

Jennifer Butler Murray filed divorce papers May 12 in Charleston County. She owns a home on Sullivans Island, S.C., where she lives with the couple's four children.

The complaint was first reported by The Post and Courier of Charleston. It also alleges frequent abandonment by the former "Saturday Night Live" star.

Bill Murray's attorney, John McDougall, wouldn't comment on the allegations, but said the entertainer "is deeply saddened by the breakup of his marriage."

"He and his wife made loving parents and they are committed to the best interests of their children," McDougall said.

Jennifer Murray's attorney, Robert Rosen, said he had no comment.

The couple signed a prenuptial agreement, which was filed as an exhibit with the divorce papers, before they married in 1997. As part of the agreement, both waived their right to alimony or support if the marriage broke up. However, Murray agreed to pay $7 million to his ex-wife within 60 days of a final divorce decree.

The complaint, which doesn't specify instances of Murray's alleged marijuana or alcohol use, alleges he would often leave without telling his wife and says he "travels overseas where he engages in public and private altercations and sexual liaisons."

It also alleges Murray physically abused his wife and last November "hit her in the face and then told her she was `lucky he didn't kill her.'"

The documents obtained by The Post and Courier were sealed by the court last week.

Murray, the star of movies such as "Ghostbusters," "Caddyshack" and "Groundhog Day," is a co-owner of the Charleston RiverDogs minor league baseball team.

The 57-year-old actor earned an Oscar nomination for his role in "Lost in Translation."

"Star Trek" theme composer Alexander Courage dies

LOS ANGELES - Alexander "Sandy" Courage, an Emmy-winning and Academy Award-nominated arranger, orchestrator and composer who created the otherworldly theme for the classic "Star Trek" TV show, has died. He was 88.

Courage died May 15 at the Sunrise assisted-living facility in Pacific Palisades, his stepdaughter Renata Pompelli of Los Angeles, said Thursday. He had been in poor health for three years.

Over a decades-long career, Courage collaborated on dozens of movies and orchestrated some of the greatest musicals of the 1950s and 1960s, including "My Fair Lady," "Hello, Dolly!" "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers," "Gigi," "Porgy and Bess" and "Fiddler on the Roof."

But his most famous work is undoubtedly the "Star Trek" theme, which he composed, arranged and conducted in a week in 1965.

"I have to confess to the world that I am not a science fiction fan," Courage said in an interview for the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation's Archive of American Television in 2000. "Never have been. I think it's just marvelous malarkey. ... So you write some, you hope, marvelous malarkey music that goes with it."

Courage said the tune, with its ringing fanfare, eerie soprano part and swooping orchestration, was inspired by an arrangement of the song "Beyond the Blue Horizon" he heard as a youngster.

"Little did I know when I wrote that first A-flat for the flute that it was going to go down in history, somehow," Courage said. "It's a very strange feeling."

Courage said he also mouthed the "whooshing" sound heard as the starship Enterprise zooms through the opening credits of the TV show.

"Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry later wrote lyrics to the tune, which were never sung on the show but entitled him to half the royalties, Courage said.

Among the many other projects Courage worked on was the 1987 TV special "Julie Andrews: The Sound of Christmas," for which he won an Emmy for musical direction.

He and Lionel Newman shared Academy Award nominations for their adapted scores for 1964's "The Pleasure Seekers" and 1967's "Doctor Dolittle."

A friend and colleague of movie composers John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith, he also provided the orchestration for such movies as "The Poseidon Adventure," "Jurassic Park," "Basic Instinct" and "The Mummy" and supplied arrangements for the Boston Pops while Williams was conductor in the 1980s and early 1990s.

For "Star Trek" he composed music for only a few episodes, in addition to the theme and the music for the pilot. But that theme was reprised in the TV sequel "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and in the "Star Trek" movies.

Courage was born Dec. 10, 1919, in Philadelphia and raised in New Jersey. After graduation from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., in 1941, Courage enlisted in the Army Air Corps.

After the war, he became a composer for CBS radio shows and then became an orchestrator and arranger at MGM.

Beginning in the 1960s he composed music for TV shows, including "The Waltons," "Lost in Space" and "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," although the only themes he created were for "Star Trek" and "Judd For the Defense."

Steven Tyler goes to rehab for 'quiet environment'

LOS ANGELES - Steven Tyler checked into a rehab facility in search of a "safe environment" to recover from several foot surgeries and physical therapy, the Aerosmith frontman said in a statement Thursday.

Tyler said the surgeries were to correct long-time foot injuries resulting from his physical performances as the singer for the blues-rock band.

"The doctors told me the pain in my feet could be corrected but it would require a few surgeries over time," Tyler said in the statement. "The 'foot repair' pain was intense, greater than I'd anticipated. The months of rehabilitative care and the painful strain of physical therapy were traumatic. I really needed a safe environment to recuperate where I could shut off my phone and get back on my feet."

The 60-year-old was known for heavy drug and alcohol abuse in the 1970s and early 1980s, but completed rehabilitation in 1986, after which Aerosmith enjoyed a successful revival.

'Carol Burnett' star Harvey Korman dies at 81

LOS ANGELES - Harvey Korman, the tall, versatile comedian who won four Emmys for his outrageously funny contributions to "The Carol Burnett Show" and played a conniving politician to hilarious effect in "Blazing Saddles," died Thursday. He was 81.

Korman died at UCLA Medical Center after suffering complications from the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm four months ago, his family said. He had undergone several major operations.

"He was a brilliant comedian and a brilliant father," daughter Kate Korman said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "He had a very good sense of humor in real life. "

A natural second banana, Korman gained attention on "The Danny Kaye Show," appearing in skits with the star. He joined the show in its second season in 1964 and continued until it was canceled in 1967. That same year he became a cast member in the first season of "The Carol Burnett Show."

Burnett and Korman developed into the perfect pair with their burlesques of classic movies such as "Gone With the Wind" and soap operas like "As the World Turns" (their version was called "As the Stomach Turns").

Another recurring skit featured them as "Ed and Eunice," a staid married couple who were constantly at odds with the wife's mother (a young Vickie Lawrence in a gray wig). In "Old Folks at Home," they were a combative married couple bedeviled by Lawrence as Burnett's troublesome young sister.

Korman revealed the secret to the long-running show's success in a 2005 interview: "We were an ensemble, and Carol had the most incredible attitude. I've never worked with a star of that magnitude who was willing to give so much away."

Burnett was devastated by Korman's death, said her assistant, Angie Horejsi.

"She loved Harvey very much," Horejsi said.

After 10 successful seasons, Korman left Burnett's show in 1977 for his own series. Dick Van Dyke took his place, but the chemistry was lacking and the Burnett show was canceled two years later. "The Harvey Korman Show" also failed, as did other series starring the actor.

"It takes a certain type of person to be a television star," he said in that 2005 interview. "I didn't have whatever that is. I come across as kind of snobbish and maybe a little too bright. ... Give me something bizarre to play or put me in a dress and I'm fine."

His most memorable film role was as the outlandish Hedley Lamarr (who was endlessly exasperated when people called him Hedy) in Mel Brooks' 1974 Western satire, "Blazing Saddles."

"A world without Harvey Korman — it's a more serious world," Brooks told the AP on Thursday. "It was very dangerous for me to work with him because if our eyes met we'd crash to floor in comic ecstasy. It was comedy heaven to make Harvey Korman laugh."

He also appeared in the Brooks comedies "High Anxiety," "The History of the World Part I" and "Dracula: Dead and Loving It," as well as two "Pink Panther" moves, "Trail of the Pink Panther" in 1982 and "Curse of the Pink Panther" in 1983.

Korman's other films included "Gypsy," "Huckleberry Finn" (as the King), "Herbie Goes Bananas" and "Bud and Lou" (as legendary straightman Bud Abbott to Buddy Hackett's Lou Costello). He also provided the voice of Dictabird in the 1994 live-action feature "The Flintstones."

In television, Korman guest-starred in dozens of series including "The Donna Reed Show," "Dr. Kildare," "Perry Mason," "The Wild Wild West," "The Muppet Show," "The Love Boat," "The Roseanne Show" and "Burke's Law."

In their '70s, he and Tim Conway, one of his Burnett show co-stars, toured the country with their show "Tim Conway and Harvey Korman: Together Again." They did 120 shows a year, sometimes as many as six or eight in a weekend.

Korman had an operation in late January on a non-cancerous brain tumor and pulled through "with flying colors," Kate Korman said. Less than a day after coming home, he was re-admitted because of the ruptured aneurysm and was given a few hours to live. But he survived for another four months.

"He fought until the very end. He didn't want to die. He fought for months and months," said Kate Korman.

Harvey Herschel Korman was born Feb. 15, 1927, in Chicago. He left college for service in the U.S. Navy, resuming his studies afterward at the Goodman School of Drama at the Chicago Art Institute. After four years, he decided to try New York.

"For the next 13 years I tried to get on Broadway, on off-Broadway, under or beside Broadway," he told a reporter in 1971.

He had no luck and had to support himself as a restaurant cashier. Finally, in desperation, he and a friend formed a nightclub comedy act.

"We were fired our first night in a club, between the first and second shows," he recalled.

After returning to Chicago, Korman decided to try Hollywood, reasoning that "at least I'd feel warm and comfortable while I failed."

For three years he sold cars and worked as a doorman at a movie theater. Then he landed the job with Kaye.

In 1960 Korman married Donna Elhart and they had two children, Maria and Christopher. They divorced in 1977. Two more children, Katherine and Laura, were born of his 1982 marriage to Deborah Fritz.

In addition to his daughter Kate, he is survived by his wife and the three other children.

Duckman - DVD Date Announced for Duckman - Seasons 1 and 2!!!

Get this classic animated series at last this September!!!

Early this past January we had great news for Duckman fans, passing along a report that CBS DVD's Executive VP and General Manager Ken Ross had gotten his group together to "wrap our brains around figuring a way" to begin releasing the classic adult-targeted animated series on DVD at long last, sometime in 2008.

A couple of days later we were able to bring you confirmation, direct from show creator Everett Peck, that "...it's true! My agent and I have been working closely with CBS to get this to happen. It looks like initial release will be seasons one and two. There will be some value added material but I'm not quite sure how that will shape up at this point."

The Duckman - Seasons 1 and 2 DVD set has been announced this morning for release on September 16th. This will be 22 episodes (13 for the first season, and another nine for the second) being presented on disc in full screen video, and with English Stereo Surround audio. Unfortunately, no other information was available with this morning's quick heads-up announcement. Stay tuned, though, and we'll hopefully be back in the not-too-distant future with more details, including extras and cover art!

Jessica Simpson Country Song Hits Radio

The first fruit of Jessica Simpson's upcoming country album has hit the airwaves. "Come on Over" was serviced digitally yesterday (May 27) to country radio and was spun 21 times on Broadcast Data Systems-monitored stations.

Against acoustic guitar strums and a driving rhythm, the track finds Simpson pleading with a love interest to drop everything and pay her a visit. "Leave your coat behind the door / leave your laundry on the floor / just come on over," she sings.

Simpson's as-yet-untitled album is expected in early fall via Columbia Nashville, according to her spokesperson.

"I am a country girl," she told Billboard late last year in her first interview about the project. "I grew up in Texas, and country music was what I listened to. I always wanted to make a country album, but I wanted to wait until the time was right."

"I think there is a strength in female country artists," she added, citing Martina McBride, Shania Twain, Faith Hill and Reba McEntire as some of her inspirations.

Dinner with Pamela Anderson for highest charity bid

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - How much would you pay to have dinner with Pamela Anderson?

The former "Baywatch" star is offering herself as a dinner guest to the highest bidder at an auction in Abu Dhabi on Saturday for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Anderson, 40, will be flying out to Abu Dhabi as the big attraction at the fund-raiser. The United Arab Emirates branch of the international foundation is hoping to make the wishes of 39 terminally ill children come true.

"We are planning to have a lot of fun and make a lot of money for the cause," the Canadian-born actress said in a statement on Wednesday.

CFL legend calling it quits

TORONTO - Veteran CFL quarterback Damon Allen is calling it quits.

A league source requesting anonymity said Tuesday the Toronto Argonauts quarterback has decided to retire after 23 seasons. The source added Allen will make it official at a news conference Wednesday. The source said Allen will remain with the Argos in an unspecified role, but added it's very unlikely Allen will join head coach Rich Stubler's staff.

Dan Lawson, Allen's longtime agent, politely offered no comment when asked if his client had indeed decided to call it a career.

Allen, 44, had maintained as early as last week that he intended to attend training camp and compete for the starter's job.

However, the harsh reality was he would have gone into camp third on the depth chart behind newly acquired Kerry Joseph and veteran Michael Bishop, both of whom signed new deals with the Argos in the off-season.

Allen, a San Diego native, will leave the CFL as pro football's career passing leader with 72,381 yards. The younger brother of Pro Football Hall of Famer Marcus Allen played on four Grey Cup-winning teams and in 2005, he captured the league's outstanding player award.

The six-foot, 190-pound Allen entered the CFL as a free agent with Edmonton in 1985 and also spent time with Ottawa, Hamilton, Memphis and B.C. before the Lions dealt him to Toronto in 2003.

At age 41, Allen led Toronto to a Grey Cup title in '04 against the Lions despite having suffered a fractured tibia earlier in the year. With brother Marcus on hand to watch in Ottawa, Allen captured Grey Cup MVP honours for the third time after completing 23-of-34 passes for 299 yards and one TD. He also ran five times for 10 yards and two TDs.

Allen opened last season as Toronto's starter but was replaced by Bishop in the third quarter of the first game before ultimately dropping to No. 3 on the depth chart behind backup Mike McMahon. Allen later regained the starting job when Bishop was injured and McMahon failed to impress.

However, Allen suffered a toe injury and was ultimately placed on the injured list, giving Rocky Butler the starting job. Allen finished the season 45-of-67 passing for 492 yards and three TDs with no interceptions.

A further sign Allen's time with Toronto had come to an end was the club's blockbuster off-season trade for Joseph, the CFL's outstanding player last year who led Saskatchewan to the Grey Cup.

Allen was a two-sport star at Cal State Fullerton. He led the Titans football team to a pair of Pacific Coast Athletic Association titles but was also a pitcher on the school's baseball team that captured the '84 College World Series. Allen was drafted by Detroit Tigers in '84, the same year that club won the World Series.

Allen never signed with Detroit and instead went to Edmonton in '85. In 1987, Allen replaced injured starter Matt Dunigan in the Grey Cup and captured his first MVP award after leading the Eskimos to victory.

He won his second Grey Cup with Edmonton in 1993 before returning to baseball in '94, signing a deal with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He reported to spring training that year, but left to resume his CFL career with the Eskimos. Allen also won a Grey Cup with the Lions in 2000.

Despite his gaudy aerial numbers, Allen was hardly the typical strong-armed quarterback. Blessed with quick feet and a knack to sense an oncoming rush, Allen often relied on his legs to get himself out of trouble. In 1991 with Ottawa, Allen ran for 1,036 yards, becoming just the second quarterback in CFL history to rush for more than 1,000 yards in a season - Edmonton's Tracy Ham ran for 1,096 yards in 1990.

Allen is the CFL's career rushing leader among quarterbacks with 11,920 yards and third overall behind only Mike Pringle (16,425 yards) and George Reed (16,116).

As Allen got older, he showed a maturity that often comes with experience. Rather than risk injury by running downfield at the first sign of trouble, Allen often used his scrambling ability to evade the rush and give his receivers time to get open downfield. In 2005, Allen threw for a career-high 5,082 yards and completed 64.1 per cent of his passes en route to capturing his only CFL outstanding player award.

The following year, though, Allen suffered a broken finger that force him to miss roughly a month of action. He made football history Sept. 4 in Hamilton when he broke former CFL star Warren Moon's all-time passing record of 70,553 yards.

The historic completion was a shovel pass to Arland Bruce III, who took the ball 29 yards. Play was halted briefly as Allen was honoured on the field by then CFL commissioner Tom Wright.

Earle Hagen, 88: Wrote, whistled 'Andy Griffith' theme

LOS ANGELES–Earle H. Hagen, who co-wrote the jazz classic "Harlem Nocturne" and composed memorable themes for The Andy Griffith Show, I Spy, The Mod Squad and other TV shows, has died. He was 88.

Hagen, who is heard whistling the folksy tune for The Andy Griffith Show, died Monday night at his home in Rancho Mirage, his wife, Laura, said Tuesday. He had been in ill health for several months.

During his long musical career, Hagen performed with the top bands of the swing era, composed for movies and television and wrote one of the first textbooks on movie composing.

He and Lionel Newman were nominated for an Academy Award for best music scoring for the 1960 Marilyn Monroe movie Let's Make Love.

For television, he composed original music for more than 3,000 episodes, pilots and TV movies, including theme songs for That Girl, The Dick Van Dyke Show and Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.

"He loved it," his wife said. "The music just flowed from him, and he would take off one hat and put on another and go on to the next show."

Hagen enjoyed the immediacy of the small screen, he told the American Society of Musicians Arrangers & Composers in 2000.

"It was hard work, with long hours and endless deadlines, but being able to write something one day and hear it a few days later appealed to me," he said. "Besides, I was addicted to the ultimate narcosis in music, which is the rush you get when you give a downbeat and wonderful players breathe life into the notes you have put on paper."

Born July 9, 1919, in Chicago, Hagen moved to Los Angeles as a youngster. He began playing the trombone while in junior high school.

"The school actually furnished him with a tuba and his mother made him take it back," his wife said.

He became so proficient that he graduated early from Hollywood High School and at 16 was touring with big bands. He played trombone with Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey and arranged for and played with Ray Noble's orchestra.

He and Newman wrote "Harlem Nocturne" for Noble in 1939. It has been covered many times since and served as the theme music for Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer television series in 1984.

In 1941, Hagen became a staff musician for CBS but the next year he enlisted in the military.

After the war, he worked as a composer and orchestrator for 20th Century-Fox studios on dozens of movies, including another Monroe classic, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

In the 1950s, he and Herbert Spencer formed an orchestra partnership that also wrote music for television, including scoring the Danny Thomas hit Make Room for Daddy.

Later, he worked as musical director for producer Sheldon Leonard, sometimes working on as many of five shows a week.

One of his more notable TV scoring efforts was for the 1960s adventure series I Spy, starring Bill Cosby and Robert Culp.

Because the show used exotic locations worldwide, Hagen often included ethnic touches in the incidental music, among them hiring Greek musicians to play for some episodes that took place in Greece. On other locations, he collected ethnic music to mix with western music back in Hollywood.

After retiring from TV work in 1986, Hagen taught a workshop in film and television scoring.

He also wrote three books on scoring, including 1971's Scoring for Films, one of the earliest textbooks on the subject. His 2002 autobiography was titled Memoirs of a Famous Composer – Nobody Ever Heard Of.

Besides his wife, Hagen is survived by his sons, Deane and James, both of Palm Desert; stepchildren Rebecca Roberts, of Irvine, Richard Roberts of Los Angeles and Rachael Roberts of Irvine; and four grandchildren. His first wife, Elouise Hagen, died in 2002 following 59 years of marriage.

Backstreet Boys announce 13 Canadian tour dates

The Backstreet Boys, the most successful of the boy bands created by jailed financier Lou Pearlman, are planning a North American tour with 13 Canadian stops.

The band, with four remaining members — Brian Littrell, Nick Carter, Howie Dorough and A.J McLean — announced their tour plans on Tuesday.

Original member Kevin Richardson left the group in 2006 to begin a family.

The Canadian leg of the tour begins July 30 in St. John's, N.L.

The tour will also go to:

Moncton.
Halifax.
Ottawa.
Montreal.
Toronto.
Sudbury, Ont.
Sault Ste Marie, Ont.
Regina.
Calgary.
Edmonton.
Vancouver.
Victoria.

The group was at the peak of its success 10 years ago with their album Backstreet's Back and hit single Quit Playing Games With My Heart.

The Backstreet Boys had a hiatus from 2001 to 2005, while Carter began a solo career.

They are touring in support of their 2007 album, Unbreakable.

"We couldn't wait to get back on stage with a big extravagant show using this material as the base," Carter said in a statement.

"Half of what we do is vocals and harmonies on our albums, but our other role is as entertainers, which we take great pride in."

Pearlman, the producer who launched the band, was last week sentenced to 25 years in jail on fraud charges.

Sharon Stone: Was China quake `bad karma?'

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Sharon Stone's "karma" is having an instant effect on her movie-star status in China.

The 50-year-old actress suggested last week that the devastating May 12 earthquake in China could have been the result of bad karma over the government's treatment of Tibet. That prompted the founder of one of China's biggest cinema chains to say his company would not show her films in his theaters, according to a story in The Hollywood Reporter.

"I'm not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else," Stone said Thursday during a Cannes Film Festival red-carpet interview with Hong Kong's Cable Entertainment News. "And then this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, is that karma? When you're not nice that the bad things happen to you?"

Ng See-Yuen, founder of the UME Cineplex chain and the chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Filmmakers, called Stone's comments "inappropriate," adding that actors should not bring personal politics to comments about a natural disaster that has left five million Chinese homeless, according to the Reporter.

UME has branches in Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Hangzhou and Guangzhou, China's biggest urban movie markets.

During the brief interview, which has also surfaced on YouTube, Stone also said she cried when she recieved a letter from the Tibetan Foundation asking her to help the quake victims.

"They wanted to go and be helpful, and that made me cry," she said. "It was a big lesson to me that sometimes you have to learn to put your head down and be of service even to people who aren't nice to you."

Stone's words created a swell of anger on the Internet, including at least one Chinese Web site devoted solely to disparaging her comments.

An after-hours phone call and email to a representative for Stone were not immediately returned Tuesday night.

"To Sharon Stone's comment, it's unlikely that we will respond," said a woman who answered the phone at the Foreign Ministry in Beijing. She refused to give her name or position.

According to the Web-based database imdb.com, Stone has at least four movies coming up between now and 2010, including "Streets of Blood," "Five Dollars a Day" and "The Year of Getting to Know Us."

James Bond returns in new novel 'Devil May Care'

LONDON - A catsuited model in stiletto heels strode the deck of a British warship with Royal Navy helicopters roaring overhead. It was not a bout of naval hijinks, but the year's most-hyped literary event — the publication of a new adventure for super-spy James Bond.

The larger-than-life launch Tuesday of the novel "Devil May Care" proves that 100 years after the birth of 007 creator Ian Fleming, the Bond brand is stronger than ever.

A large crowd of journalists and onlookers gathered to watch model Tuuli Shipster, whose silhouette adorns the cover of the book's British edition, bring the first published copies up the River Thames in a military speedboat before unpacking them aboard HMS Exeter, a destroyer moored near Tower Bridge.

"I can remember Uncle Ian's books being delivered wrapped in brown paper and string by a postman on a bicycle," niece Lucy Fleming said as she stood on the destroyer's gunmetal-gray deck. "The Royal Navy has upped the ante a little."

Britain's military appears happy to play up its ties to the fictional spy, who held the rank of Royal Navy commander before going to work for MI6. The navy loaned the Exeter and its 250-strong crew for an elaborate photo opportunity for "Devil May Care," written by Sebastian Faulks and published to mark Fleming's 100th birthday on Wednesday.

The choice of Faulks — a respected literary novelist whose books include the World War I novel "Birdsong" and the French Resistance saga "Charlotte Gray" — has brought the book serious literary attention, while the promise of sex, spying and exotic locales should help it become a best-seller. The hardcover print run in Britain and the United States is reported to be 400,000 copies.

Fleming, a journalist and wartime intelligence officer who died in 1964, wrote 14 James Bond books. Other writers, including Kingsley Amis and John Gardner, continued the series into the 21st century, with mixed results. But Faulks' license to thrill, which coincides with actor Daniel Craig's reinvigoration of the Bond film franchise, has generated a renewed sense of excitement.

"We didn't want a thriller writer," said Lucy Fleming, part of a family group that controls the author's estate. "We wanted someone who would read Ian's books and see how he did it." Faulks, she said, "has thought himself into Ian's mind."

Faulks said he even adopted Fleming's writing pace, churning out 2,000 words a day for six weeks. He says the resulting novel is about 80 percent Fleming in style.

The book's publishers — Penguin in Britain, Doubleday in the United States — are keeping its contents under wraps until it hits stores Wednesday. This much is known: the book has a 1960s Cold War setting; there are locations in Paris, Rome and the Middle East; there is torture and there is romance.

Bond aficionados were optimistic the result would be classic 007.

"Sebastian Faulks is the Daniel Craig of Bond authors," said Ajay Chowdhury, editor of the Bond fan magazine Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. "It's about quality."

Chowdhury was pleased to see a renewed focus on the books, which he said "show a deeper side of Bond."

"The Bond films are high school; the Bond books are university," he said.

This is a big year for Bond. In addition to the Fleming centenary, the latest 007 movie, "Quantum of Solace," is due for release in the fall.

Neither Faulks nor Fleming would speculate on whether "Devil May Care" would itself be filmed.

Faulks said, however, he would not be writing another Bond book.

"One tribute, one centenary, one book," he said.

The Real Ghostbusters - Time-Life to Release Complete Series This Fall!

It's been nearly a month since we posted rumors that The Real Ghostbusters would be coming to DVD this fall, and now we have some great news to share; Time-Life, the company behind the awesome Get Smart and Man From UNCLE sets, will be responsible for The Real Ghostbusters collection coming in the fall.

Our source tells us this will be a massive 26-disc set covering both The Real Ghostbusters and Slimer! And the Real Ghostbusters, the 1988 renaming of the show. With a combined episode count of just over 100 episodes, the 26 discs should have more than enough room for some great bonus material.

This set marks an exciting development: it's the first "complete series" release of an animated program from Time-Life, and it's one of the first times Sony has licensed product to another company. Ghostbusters fans are going to be kept busy soon: first the video game announcement for the fall, and now the animated series on DVD! We'll keep you updated as we get more information.

President says CBC 'could have done better' with songwriters gala

CBC president Hubert Lacroix was grilled by federal MPs on Tuesday over the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame broadcast this spring that did not include prominent francophone artists.

In a presentation to the House of Commons language committee, Lacroix admitted the public broadcaster "could have done a better job under the circumstances."

The 44-minute broadcast of the Songwriters Hall of Fame gala provoked anger in Quebec because it cut out Quebec singer Claude Dubois's performance and acceptance speech.

"This has raised awareness of what we should do to be more sensitive on this issue," Lacroix said.

Cutting of the francophone performer "doesn't help in promoting understanding between cultures," said New Democrat MP Yvon Godin.

He pressed Lacroix over remarks made by Richard Stursberg that the gala broadcast had been cut to appeal to anglophone viewers.

Speaking before the same committee earlier this year, Stursberg said the broadcast was created from an original ceremony lasting three and a half hours and it was cut to target an audience in English Canada.

"He was saying people in English Canada would turn off the channel if a francophone singer came on. This kind of thing hurts us as francophones," Godin said.

Lacroix denied there was any implication that anglophone viewers would turn off the show if a singer performed in French.

There are many other shows on CBC that highlight Canada's linguistic duality, he said, but that was not part of the mandate of the songwriters' gala broadcast.

"As Mr. Stursberg said, the purpose of the 44-minute broadcast was to target an English Canadian audience. That's why it focused on Oscar Peterson and Paul Anka," he said.

He pointed out that Radio Canada, the francophone network, did not air the gala, and that Radio 2 aired it in its entirety.

Lacroix said a cut-down version of the gala has been aired on CBC Television for the past three years. He said the public broadcaster would reconsider how it airs the gala in future.

"If we are going to be doing this type of event, broadcast, we will be more sensitive to issues of diversity," he said.

When pressed by Bloc Québécois MPs, Lacroix refused to speculate how the show would change.

"We've agreed to relinquish our exclusive broadcast rights," he said. "It will be up to the organizers."

MP Raymond Gravel said CBC was failing to fulfil its mandate.

"There were francohones of international calibre on the gala and they were cut," he said. "There's no point in francophones going to the gala next year."

Dubois, who was an inductee into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, called the CBC racist after he learned his performances were excluded from the television version of the Toronto awards.

Shortly after the awards, Stursberg issued a formal apology to all artists whose performances were edited out of the television broadcast.

New Releases, May 27: Usher, Cyndi Lauper, Return to Forever And John Hiatt!

Usher "Here I Stand"

Usher Raymond IV--better known in the entertainment business as just "Usher"--will release his new album a month earlier than initially announced. "Here I Stand" follows 2004's chart-topper "Confessions," which sold some 1.1 million copies during its first week on shelves.

For the new set, Usher worked with some big-name writers and producers, including Jermaine Dupre and Dr. Dre, and called in such guest stars as Beyonce and Jay Z. The first single from "Here I Stand" is "Love in the Club," which is already a radio hit.

* * *
Cyndi Lauper "Bring Ya to the Brink"

Lauper--the original girl who just wants to have fun--returns with a follow-up to 2005's "The Body Acoustic," a work that contained acoustic renditions of past hits. "Bring Ya to the Brink" features the single "Set Your Heart."

The quirky vocalist will also hit the road this summer, leading another edition of the True Colors tour to support the gay-and-lesbian advocacy group Human Rights Campaign. The tour, which also features The B-52's, Rosie O'Donnell and other acts, kicks off May 31 in Boston.

* * *
Return to Forever "The Anthology"

The jazz-rock fusion supergroup made headlines when it announced that it was reuniting for its first tour in 25 years. Return to Forever--featuring keyboardist Chick Corea, bassist Stanley Clarke, guitarist Al Di Meola and drummer Lenny White--will kick off its tour May 29 with the first of two shows in Austin, TX. From there, it will hit more than 30 other North American cities.

The Grammy-winning band will also have something to sell at these shows--this "Anthology" set. The collection features remixed and remastered tracks from the albums "Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy," "Where Have I Known You Before," "No Mystery" and "Romantic Warrior."

* * *
Various artists "Sex and the City: Music From the Original Motion Picture"

HBO's hit comedy TV series is getting a big-screen makeover: "Sex and the City," the motion picture, hits theaters this week. In connection with that highly anticipated film comes this soundtrack, which features tracks by such artists as The Weepies, Jennifer Hudson and Fergie. It also includes some interesting collaborations, such as Al Green teaming with Joss Stone on "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?"

* * *
Al Green "Lay It Down"

The R&B legend is set to drop his highly anticipated new studio album. Green has already been active on the road this spring, playing a few select festivals such as the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage and the Sonoma Jazz +. He'll kick off his headlining tour in earnest with a June 19 show in Toronto.

* * *
More new releases:
The Browns, "The Complete Hits" (Collector's Choice)
The Byrds, "Live at Royal Albert Hall 1971" (Sundazed)
Eliza Gilkyson, "Beautiful World" (Red House)
Buddy Guy, "Breaking Out" (JSP)
John Hiatt, "Same Old Man" (New West)
Ihsahn, "Angl" (Candlelight)
Kataklysm, "Prevail" (Nuclear Blast)
Sam Phillips, "Don't Do Anything" (Nonesuch)
Jenny Scheinman, "Jenny Scheinman" (Koch)
The Smithereens, "Live in Concert--Greatest Hits and More" (Koch)
36 Crazyfists, "The Tide and Its Takers" (Ferret)
Tobymac, "Alive and Transported" (Forefront)
Various artists, "Nigeria 70: Lagos Jump" (Strut)

Soundtracks and scores:
"A Catered Affair (Original Broadway Cast Recording)" (P.S. Classics)
"Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific" (Sony)

Music Review: John Hiatt's new CD among his best

John Hiatt, "Same Old Man" (New West)

John Hiatt's conversational lyrics sound off-the-cuff, which means they likely resulted from many hours of labor. The work was worth it, because "Same Old Man" ranks with the best music of Hiatt's 34-year recording career.

He sings about love in the opening round and love on the ropes, about food and paper cuts and "doppelganger caterwauling." "Same Old Man" is sweet but not sentimental, tuneful, honest and very, very funny.

On his first release since 2005's fine "Master of Disaster," Hiatt produced and engineered himself, and he puts his voice front and center. As always, Hiatt sings like someone straining to complete the final set of the night at the local roadhouse. The raw vocals are a perfect match for such songs as "Hurt My Baby," where pain is palpable as Hiatt delivers the chorus.

He's supported by bass, drums and Luther Dickinson, who plays guitar and mandolin and provides an ideal counterpoint to the vocals by making every note count. Hiatt's daughter, Lilly, contributes lovely harmony on two songs.

Dad delivers his droll lyrics as if they're throwaways, which makes them even better. "I'm a long shot, baby," he sings. "But they do come in." In fact, "Same Old Man" laps the field.

CHECK THIS OUT: On the hilarious opener "Old Days," Hiatt reminisces about his early touring career and crossing paths with John Lee Hooker, Gatemouth Brown and other bluesmen. He concludes the memories aren't that sweet because "I played practically free."

Appreciation: Pollack's smart and complex films

LOS ANGELES - Sydney Pollack had the rare ability to use his acting experience as adeptly behind the camera as he did in front of it.

He won Academy Awards for best picture and best director for the epic "Out of Africa," but the former student of legendary acting teacher Sanford Meisner also turned up on screen in everything from his own productions to television's "The Sopranos" and "Will & Grace."

Think of his scene-stealing performance in 1982's "Tootsie," which he also directed, playing the exasperated agent of Dustin Hoffman's cross-dressing soap star — and that was the first time Pollack had acted on film in 20 years. And of course there was his pull-no-punches supporting role as an old-school lawyer in last year's best-picture nominee "Michael Clayton," which he also co-produced.

Along the way, Pollack, who died Monday of cancer at age 73, used his unique relationship with acting — and Hollywood's finest actors — to craft a career of smart, complex, high-quality films.

Whether they were thrillers like "Three Days of the Condor" and "Absence of Malice," romances like "The Way We Were" and "Out of Africa," or even "Tootsie" — an unusual comedy for a director who clearly had heady ideas — Pollack's movies stirred something within his audiences.

You couldn't just sit there and watch passively; Pollack challenged you to feel, to respond, to walk out a little different than when you walked in.

With typical candor and humor, Pollack joked during a discussion at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival that he enjoyed appearing in other people's films because it was "an excuse to spy on other directors."

"Directors are very territorial," he said. "They're like lions, urinating on every corner of the stage."

And he worked with some of the best: The list of fellow filmmakers who've directed him includes Woody Allen ("Husbands and Wives"), Robert Altman ("The Player") and Stanley Kubrick ("Eyes Wide Shut").

The list of actors he directed, meanwhile, plays like the red carpet on Oscar night: Paul Newman, Meryl Streep, Jane Fonda, Sean Penn, Nicole Kidman, Barbra Streisand and — seven times — Robert Redford. He drew equally strong performances from men and women, and the assured, straightforward nature of his directing style always allowed their work to shine through.

Even his films that weren't exactly commercial successes — "Sabrina" and "Random Hearts," both with Harrison Ford — at least had Pollack's trademark star power.

In all these various vestiges, several traits immediately and repeatedly emerged: intelligence and class.

"Out of Africa" (1985), perhaps Pollack's best-known film, oozed both. The sweeping tale of a woman's tragic love in colonial Kenya earned him both of his Oscars as well as Academy Awards for screenplay, cinematography, score, sound and art direction. It's the kind of complex, classic romance Oscar voters have long favored. But more than two decades later, it still stands up beautifully for both its lush imagery and relevant politics.

In accepting his Academy Award, Pollack was quick to praise the film's star, Streep, who was nominated for best actress but didn't win. "I could not have made this movie without Meryl Streep," Pollack said. "She is astounding — personally, professionally, all ways."

Toward the end of his life, it only made sense for him to team up in a production company with another Oscar-winning director, the late Anthony Minghella, who shared his love for quality material ("The Talented Mr. Ripley," "Cold Mountain"). And fittingly, the last movie Pollack directed paired him with yet another influential figure, architect Frank Gehry, the subject of his 2006 documentary, "Sketches of Frank Gehry."

If this critic had to pick a favorite among Pollack's many films, though, it would be an early one: 1969's "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" It was only his fifth movie, but earned Pollack his first Academy Award nomination for best director. The story of a grueling dance marathon during the Depression helped make a serious actress of Fonda, who was best known at that point for the campy "Barbarella." But while she was clearly the star, the film was a provocative portrait about a cross-section of disparate people who share a dream and struggle to keep it alive.

In the years that followed, Pollack clearly shared his dreams with many superb actors, to wonderful effect.

"Most of the great directors that I know of were not actors, so I can't tell you it's a requirement. On the other hand," Pollack once said, "it's an enormous help."

Sydney Pollack dies of cancer at age 73

LOS ANGELES - Academy Award-winning director Sydney Pollack, a Hollywood mainstay who achieved commercial success and critical acclaim with the gender-bending comedy "Tootsie" and the period drama "Out of Africa, has died. He was 73.

Pollack died of cancer Monday afternoon at his home in Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles, surrounded by family, said his publicist, Leslee Dart. He had been diagnosed with cancer about nine months ago, Dart said.

Pollack, who occasionally appeared on the screen himself, worked with and gained the respect of Hollywood's best actors in a long career that reached prominence in the 1970s and 1980s.

"Sydney made the world a little better, movies a little better and even dinner a little better. A tip of the hat to a class act," actor George Clooney said in a statement issued by his publicist.

"He'll be missed terribly," Clooney said.

Last fall, Pollack played Marty Bach opposite Clooney in "Michael Clayton," a drama that examines the life of fixer for lawyers. The film, which Pollack co-produced, received seven Oscar nominations, including best picture and a best actor nod for Clooney. Tilda Swinton won the Oscar for supporting actress.

Pollack was no stranger to the Academy Awards. In 1986, "Out of Africa" a romantic epic of a woman's passion set against the landscape of colonial Kenya, captured seven Oscars, including best director.

Over the years, several of his other films, including "Tootsie" and "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" got several nominations, including best director nods.

Pollack's movies frequently had some of Hollywood's best actors: "Absence of Malice" with Sally Field and Paul Newman, "The Yakuza" with Robert Mitchum, "Three Days of the Condor" with Robert Redford, and "The Firm" with Tom Cruise, among others.

In later years, he devoted increasing time to acting, appearing in Woody Allen's "Husbands and Wives," Robert Altman's "The Player," Robert Zemeckis' "Death Becomes Her," and Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut."

Pollack's recent producing credits include "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and "Cold Mountain." His last screen appearance was in "Made of Honor," a romantic comedy currently in theaters, where he played the oft-married father of star Patrick Dempsey's character.

In recent years, Pollack produced many independent films with filmmaker Anthony Minghella and a production company Mirage Enterprises.

The Lafayette, Ind. native was born to first-generation Russian-Americans.

In high school, he fell in love with theater, a passion that prompted him forego college and move to New York and enroll in the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater.

"We started together in New York and he always excelled at everything he set out to do, his friendships and his humanity as much as his talents," Martin Landau, a longtime close friend of Pollack's and an associate from the Actor's Studio, said through spokesman Dick Guttman.

Studying under Sanford Meisner, Pollack spent several years cutting his teeth in various areas of theater, eventually becoming Meisner's assistant.

After appearing in a handful of Broadway productions in the 1950s, Pollack turned his eye to directing, where he would ultimately leave his biggest mark. But Pollack, who stood over six feet tall and had a striking presence on the screen, never totally gave up acting.

At the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival, Pollack said "Tootsie" star Dustin Hoffman pushed him into playing the actor's exasperated agent.

Pollack said Hoffman repeatedly sent him roses with a note reading, "Please be my agent. Love, Dorothy," — a reference to the lead character's female persona, Dorothy Michaels. At that point, Pollack hadn't acted in 20 years.

"Most of the great directors that I know of were not actors, so I can't tell you it's a requirement," he said. "On the other hand, it's an enormous help."

In the 1982 movie, Hoffman plays an out-of-work actor who pretends to be a woman to land a role on a soap opera.

"I didn't think anyone would believe him as a woman," Pollack said. "But the world did, they went crazy."

Pollack is survived by his wife, Claire; two daughters, Rebecca and Rachel; his brother Bernie; and six grandchildren.

CBC fall lineup built on established favourites

The CBC launched a fall lineup that relies on established shows, and ratings successes, such as The Tudors, Sophie and Little Mosque on the Prairie.

The biggest change to the fall lineup is the addition of a daily dose of Jeopardy, the game show hosted by Canadian-born Alex Trebek.

Jeopardy will be airing at 7.30 p.m. weekdays, after long-running Coronation Street

Two new mini-series — Celine, the story of the Quebec chanteuse, and Everest, the tale of a 1982 attempt on the world's highest peak by a Canadian team — make their debut this fall on Sunday evenings.

But most of the prime-time schedule is based on returning shows such as Rick Mercer Report, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, The Nature of Things and Dragon's Den.

It's the first time in recent history the CBC has presented a fall lineup filled with tried and true favourites, said Kirstine Layfield, executive director of network programming at CBC-TV.

"It's a good indication of the success of the shows from last year," she said.

Among the shows debuted in 2007-8 that are coming back for a second year are:

- The Tudors,the story of the lives and loves of Henry VII, starring Jonathan Rhys-Meyers.

- The Border, the action drama series about an elite customs and security unit.

- Heartland, the family series set in ranch country.

- Sophie, the half-hour comedy about a single mom played by Natalie Brown.

- Steven and Chris, the daytime fashion and design show.

"In prime time, we're the network that carries more Canadian shows and tells more Canadian stories to more Canadians than anyone else," Layfield said.

Richard Stursberg, executive vice-president of English services, made much of CBC-TV's ratings success with Canadian shows, pointing out the network now has better prime-time ratings than Global. CBC's commercial competitors build their lineup on U.S. shows.

While the half-hour series such as Little Mosque and Sophie are set to run a full-year, the more expensive hour-long series will end mid-season because CBC doesn't have the budget to ask for more episodes, Layfield said.

CBC will announce a new lineup for January 2009 in October, she said.

That will include a drama set in oil country, Wild Roses, and The Session, about a woman who can go back in time and relive moments from her past with the help of a mysterious therapist.

It's also the final year for Royal Canadian Air Farce, the comedy sketch show that will be bowing out after 20 years with a special on New Year's Eve.

For fall, it's paired on Friday night with Dr. Who, the BBC sci-fi drama returning for a fourth season.

In factual programming, CBC is bringing Test the Nation; Canada, Eh? which brings together six teams to test their knowledge about Canada.

Wheel of Fortune, the long-running U.S. game show has been added to the schedule at 5.30 p.m. on weekdays.

'Indiana Jones' earns $311 million worldwide

LOS ANGELES - The most recent Indiana Jones film more than recouped its big budget with an estimated $311 million in global box office sales through the long weekend, according to studio estimates Monday.

Families went in droves to catch "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," a PG-13 adventure starring Harrison Ford as the whip-cracking archaeologist who took 19 years to return to the big screen.

Paramount Pictures estimated the action sequel made $151.1 million in the U.S. and Canada from Thursday to the holiday Monday and $160 million overseas.

It marked the second biggest Memorial Day weekend opening ever, behind only "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," which made $153 million domestically from Thursday to Monday last year.

Nearly a third of the domestic audience was made up of parents with their children, said Rob Moore, president of Paramount Worldwide Distribution.

"Adults really drove this opening. This is one of their favorite franchises and they couldn't wait to take their kids with them," Moore said.

The film cost a reported $185 million to make, even with the principal talent — Ford, director Steven Spielberg and writer George Lucas — deferring their usual fees for a greater share of the profits.

The first three Indy movies raked in $1.2 billion worldwide.

Marketing costs were undisclosed, although the latest "Indiana Jones" received a major push from Paramount. DVDs of the first three movies were re-released, they aired on TV days before the opening and huge billboards sprung up.

The final trailer for the movie rolled before the opening of Marvel Studios' "Iron Man," which was also distributed by Paramount, three weeks earlier.

"It's been a pretty good month," Moore said. "We started the month with 'Iron Man' and finished with 'Indiana Jones.'"

Other movies' receipts over the long weekend paled by comparison.

Disney's "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" slashed its way to $28.6 million, for a total $96.7 million over two weeks. "Iron Man" locked up third with $25.7 million in its third week for a total of $257.8 million.

The Wachowski brothers flick "Speed Racer," distributed by Warner Bros., crawled closer to the finish line with $5.2 million for fifth, bringing its domestic total to $37.4 million. It brought in $30 million overseas, and had yet to be released in major markets France, Russia, Japan and Australia.

The studio said it was not ready to wave the checkered flag on the film, which cost $120 million to make.

"If I had my druthers I'd have it in theaters for weeks and months to come," said Jeff Goldstein, Warner Bros.' executive vice president of distribution.

For the year so far, domestic movie revenues are down more than 4 percent at $3.4 billion, with attendance off nearly 7 percent.

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

1. "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," $126 million (plus $25.1 million on Thursday).
2. "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian," $28.6 million.
3. "Iron Man," $25.7 million.
4. "What Happens in Vegas," $11.2 million.
5. "Speed Racer," $5.2 million.
6. "Made of Honor," $4.2 million.
7. "Baby Mama," $4.2 million.
8. "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," $2.2 million.
9. "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay," $1.2 million.
10. "The Visitor," $917,000.

Matt Damon Set For Bourne 4!

It shouldn't take as long for Matt Damon to lose his memory again as it did for Harrison Ford to pick the bullwhip back up.

Frank Marshall, who produces both blockbuster franchises, confirms a fourth thriller about amnesiac spy Jason Bourne is in the works with Damon and director Paul Greengrass expected to return for more lightning-paced mayhem.

"We're hoping it takes a few years less than Indiana Jones did," Marshall told Sun Media during a phone interview last week. "We're busily trying to put it together, but it all depends on the script."

That could prove especially challenging because: a) they are out of Ludlum books to (very loosely) adapt and b) Tony Gilroy, the scribe who penned Identity, Supremacy and Ultimatum has become a white-hot commodity since helming George Clooney's Michael Clayton.

"Tony's off doing his own thing," Marshall notes, referring to Gilroy's next directorial project, the thriller Duplicity, which is currently shooting with Julia Roberts and Clive Owen.

One film buff Marshall knows is looking forward to more Bourne? His longtime friend and Indiana Jones director Steven Spielberg.

"Steven loves the Bourne movies."

Comedic TV star dies at 86

LOS ANGELES -- Dick Martin, the zany half of the comedy team whose "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" took television by storm in the 1960s, making stars of Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin and creating such national catch-phrases as "Sock it to me!" has died. He was 86.

Martin, who went on to become one of television's busiest directors after splitting with Dan Rowan in the late 1970s, died Saturday night of respiratory complications at a hospital in Santa Monica, family spokesman Barry Greenberg said.

"He had had some pretty severe respiratory problems for many years, and he had pretty much stopped breathing a week ago," Greenberg said.

He was surrounded by family and friends when he died just after 9 p.m. Eastern Time.

"Laugh-in," which debuted in January 1968, was unlike any comedy-variety show before it. Rather than relying on a series of tightly scripted song-and-dance segments, it offered up a steady, almost stream-of-consciousness run of non-sequitur jokes, political satire and madhouse antics from a cast of talented young actors and comedians that also included Ruth Buzzi, Arte Johnson, Henry Gibson, Jo Anne Worley and announcer Gary Owens.

Presiding over it all were Rowan and Martin, the veteran nightclub comics whose standup banter put their own distinct spin on the show.

Like all straight men, Rowan provided the voice of reason, striving to correct his partner's absurdities. Martin, meanwhile, was full of bogus, often risque theories about life, which he appeared to hold with unwavering certainty.

Against this backdrop, audiences were taken from scene to scene by quick, sometimes psychedelic-looking visual cuts, where they might see Hawn, Worley and other women dancing in bathing suits with political slogans, or sometimes just nonsense, painted on their bodies.

"Laugh-In" astounded audiences and critics alike. For two years the show topped the Nielsen ratings, and its catchphrases-- "Sock it to me," "You bet your sweet bippy" and "Look that up in your Funk and Wagnall's" -- were recited across the country.

Stars such as John Wayne and Kirk Douglas were delighted to make brief appearances, and even Richard Nixon, running for president in 1968, dropped in to shout a befuddled sounding, "Sock it to me!" His opponent, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, was offered equal time but declined because his handlers thought it would appear undignified.

The two were both struggling actors when they met in 1952. Rowan had sold his interest in a used car dealership to take acting lessons, and Martin, who had written gags for TV shows and comedians, was tending bar in Los Angeles to pay the rent.

Although their early gigs in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley were often performed gratis, they donned tuxedoes for them and put on an air of success.

"We were raw," Martin recalled years later, "but we looked good together and we were funny."

They gradually worked up to the top night spots in New York, Miami and Las Vegas and began to appear regularly on television.

In 1966, they provided the summer replacement for "The Dean Martin Show." Within two years, they were headlining their own show.

The novelty of "Laugh-In" diminished with each season, however, and as major players such as Hawn and Tomlin moved on to bigger careers, interest in the series faded.

After the show folded in 1973, Rowan and Martin capitalized on their fame with a series of high-paid engagements around the country. They parted amicably in 1977.

"Dan has diabetes, and his doctor advised him to cool it," Martin told The Associated Press at the time.

Rowan, a sailing enthusiast, spent his last years touring the canals of Europe on a houseboat. He died in 1987.

Martin moved onto the game-show circuit, but quickly tired of it. After he complained about the lack of challenges in his career, fellow comic Bob Newhart's agent suggested he take up directing.

Soon he was one of the industry's busiest TV directors, working on numerous episodes of "Newhart" as well as such shows as "In the Heat of the Night," "Archie Bunker's Place" and "Family Ties."

Born into a middle-class family in Battle Creek, Mich., Martin had worked in a Ford auto assembly plant after high school.

After an early failed marriage, he was for years a confirmed bachelor. He finally settled down in middle age, marrying Dolly Read, a former bunny at the Playboy Club in London. Survivors include his wife and two sons, actor Richard Martin and Cary Martin.

At Martin's request there will be no funeral, Greenberg said.

Martin lost the use of his right lung when he was 17, something that never bothered him until his final years, when he required oxygen 18 hours a day.

Arriving for a party celebrating his 80th birthday, he fainted and was treated by doctors and paramedics. The party continued, however, and he cracked, "Boy, did I make an entrance!"

"Indiana Jones" leaves box office rivals in dust

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Who says box office superheroes need to sport tights or youthful smirks to win the hearts of moviegoers?

The fantasy adventure "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," in which 65-year-old Harrison Ford reprises his role as an intrepid archeologist, unearthed $126 million during its first four days of release in North American theaters, its distributor said on Sunday.

Paramount Pictures predicted the long-awaited fourth installment of the adventure series would pick up an additional $25 million on Monday -- the Memorial Day holiday in the United States -- to bring its total to $151 million.

The five-day forecast was in line with industry expectations, and falls just $2 million short of the Memorial Day weekend record set last year by "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End." The five-day record is held by "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith," which opened to $173 million a week before the Memorial Day holiday in 2005.

For the traditional Friday-to-Sunday portion of the weekend, "Indiana Jones" made an estimated $101 million, the biggest opening of the year by that measure. The record was set three weekends ago by the superhero saga "Iron Man," which opened to $98.6 million without any holiday boost.

"Crystal Skull," directed by Steven Spielberg, is the first movie in the lucrative "Jones" franchise to hit theaters in 19 years. Ford, who delivers a few self-effacing remarks about his age in between some old-fashioned stunt work, is joined by Cate Blanchett and Spielberg's hot new discovery, Shia LaBeouf. George Lucas, who created the franchise in 1981, returned as executive producer.

Viacom Inc-owned Paramount, along with the filmmakers, shrouded the film in an unusual amount of secrecy ahead of its glitzy world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last Sunday, stoking the anticipation factor among nostalgic fans. It also opened in 61 foreign countries, but the studio said data would not be available until Monday.

"Indiana Jones" siphoned off some of the audience from last week's leader, "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian," which slipped to No. 2 with $23 million for the Friday-to-Sunday period, a hefty slide of 58 percent.

After a disappointing $55 million opening last weekend, the second film in Walt Disney Co's "Narnia" fantasy series has earned $91 million -- about 20 percent off the pace of its 2005 predecessor, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe."

"Iron Man," meanwhile, fell to No. 3 with $20.1 million, taking its total to $252.3 million. Paramount distributed the film for its producer, Marvel Entertainment Inc.

French classroom drama wins Cannes' top prize

CANNES, France (AP) — The French film "The Class," a frank tale about classroom life using real students and teachers at a junior high school, won top honors Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival.

Directed by Laurent Cantet, "The Class" ("Entre les Murs") was the first French film to win the main prize, the Palme d'Or, at Cannes since "Under Satan's Sun" in 1987. The docudrama was shot in a raw, improvisational style to chronicle the drama that unfolds over one school year.

The win was a unanimous decision among the nine-member Cannes jury, said Sean Penn, who headed the panel.

"The movie that we wanted to make had to resemble French society, had to be multifaceted, a bit teeming, complex, and had to sometimes portray frictions that the film didn't try to erase," Cantet said.

Italian films won the second-place grand prize and third-place jury prize. Matteo Garrone's "Gomorrah," a study of the criminal underworld in Naples, took the grand prize, while Paolo Sorrentino's "Il Divo," a lively portrait of former Premier Giulio Andreotti, won the jury award.

Benicio Del Toro won the best-actor prize for "Che," Steven Soderbergh's four-hour-plus epic about Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara. Presented as two films, "Che" follows Guevara and Fidel Castro's triumphant guerrilla campaign to overthrow Cuba's government in the late 1950s and Guevara's downfall and execution after trying to foment a similar rebellion in Bolivia in the 1960s.

Del Toro, who co-starred in Penn's "21 Grams," also won in a unanimous jury vote, Penn said.

"I'd like to dedicate this to the man himself, Che Guevara," said Del Toro. He also thanked Soderbergh, "who got up every day, forced me to this. ... He was there pushing it, and he pushed all of us."

Soderbergh directed Del Toro to the supporting-actor Oscar for 2000's "Traffic."

Sandra Corveloni was chosen as best actress for "Linha de Passe," in which she plays the mother of four brothers struggling to make better lives for themselves in a Brazilian slum. It was her first role in a feature film.

Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan was named best director for "Three Monkeys," which centers on a father who takes the rap for his employer's crime in exchange for financial support for his wife and son, only to have the scheme backfire amid bitter repercussions.

Belgian siblings Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, two-time winners of the Palme d'Or, received the screenplay prize for "Lorna's Silence," about an immigrant woman who enters a sham marriage to gain Belgian citizenship.

The prize for a film by a first-time director went to British filmmaker Steve McQueen's "Hunger," set at a Northern Ireland prison where IRA volunteer Bobby Sands and other inmates seeking Irish independence staged a hunger strike in 1981.

The Cannes jury awarded special prizes to Clint Eastwood, who directed the competition film "Changeling," and Catherine Deneuve, who appeared in two films at Cannes this year.

Eastwood was shut out for key prizes with "Changeling," his warmly received missing-child drama starring Angelina Jolie.

Eastwood, who delivered two best-picture and director Academy Award recipients with "Unforgiven" and "Million Dollar Baby," has never won top honors at Cannes after five times in competition there since 1985.

Jury president Penn won the best-actor Oscar for Eastwood's "Mystic River," which was shut out for prizes at Cannes five years ago.

"There was a field of such powerful, emotional, moving movies, performances. There was so many times that we thought, it just can't get better," Penn said.

Critics judged the Cannes lineup more harshly, however. While Cannes presented few outright bombs this time, critics found the films a bit tepid.

Last year's competition included such films as Joel and Ethan Coen's "No Country for Old Men," which went on to win the best-picture Academy Award, and Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's animated coming-of-age tale "Persepolis," which was nominated for the animation Oscar.

A film from Kazakhstan, Sergey Dvortsevoy's "Tulpan," won a secondary competition called "Un Certain Regard." "Tulpan" is the story of an aspiring shepherd on the isolated Kazakh steppes who must wed before he can enter his chosen trade but is refused by the only prospective bride because she thinks his ears are too big.

Bosnian director Aida Begic's "Snow," a drama about villagers struggling with the decision to leave their war-ravaged town, won top honors in another Cannes competition overseen by critics.

After the awards ceremony, the festival closed with the premiere of Barry Levinson's "What Just Happened?", starring Robert De Niro, Bruce Willis and Penn in the tale of a fading Hollywood producer trying to rejuvenate his career amid personal and professional crises.

"What Just Happened?" came full circle: A year ago, Levinson and his collaborators were at Cannes filming scenes for the movie.

The Couch Potato Report - May 24th, 2008

This week The Couch Potato Report peels a small Canadian Film that works, a huge Hollywood film that doesn't, and some zombies!

For some reason, I don't have a lot to say about this week's five new releasses.

Admittedly, due to my fondness for The Muppets, there is one of them that I could go on and on about, but I won't...in fact, I won't go on at leangth about any of them.

That includes this week's HOT POTATO - the Canadian film WALK ALL OVER ME is about a small town girl runs into big time trouble as she takes on her roommates identity as a dominatrix to pay the bills.

Filmed in and around Winnipeg and Vancouver, WALK ALL OVER ME stars Tricia Helfer - who plays The Six on the latest incarnation of TV's BATTLESTAR GALLACTICA, and Leelee Sobieski - who co-starred in Stanley Kubrick's EYES WIDE SHUT.

They are both very beautiful and talented actresses, and if you have enjoyed their work in the past, and the plot sounds interesting to you, then I think you will like the film itself.

If you don't care for the cast, and the premise doesn't engage you, then you won't.

With some films, it is as simple as that.

I did like the cast, and so I acknowledge that I liked this quirky, mildly entertaining film.

I also found NATIONAL TREASURE - BOOK OF SECRETS to be mildly entertaining.

This one picks up where the original one left off - with Nicolas Cage once again playing a treasure hunter whose family believes in the legend of a fantastic treasure trove of artifacts and gold, hidden by the Founding Fathers of the United States, and forgotten to all but a few.

This sequel sees Cage's Benjamin Franklin Gates looking to find out the truth behind the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and whether one of his ancestors was involved, by uncovering the mystery within the 18 pages that are missing from assassin John Wilkes Booth's diary.

Like I said, I found NATIONAL TREASURE - BOOK OF SECRETS to be mildly entertaining, and if you liked the first one, or just can't get into the new INDIANA JONES film this weekend, well then this would be an okay second choice.

So, mild recommendations for this week's first two releases, a huge SKIP IT is up now for the latest zombie movie from George A. Romero, the man who basically invented the Zombie Movie genre with the 1968 film NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD!!

Unfortunately his latest film isn't as good as his first, or even his last few films.

Filmed in Toronto, DIARY OF THE DEAD is about a group of young film students who run into real-life zombies while filming a horror movie of their own.

Now, even though I respect George A. Romero's career and work, and I do enjoy a good zombie film, I still went into this one with very low expectations...and even those low expectations weren't met as the premise of a film within a film with one character recording everything on his camera, no matter what happens never putting it down, just doesn't work here.

It worked in the movie CLOVERFIELD earlier this year, but it is highly ineffective here.

Sadly, this one is for Zombie Film Officiandoes only.

Now, if you don't like Zombies, but instead enjoy the classic science fiction films they used to make in the 1950s, well then do I have something for you!!

The 6 DVD, 10 movie set - THE CLASSIC SCI-FI ULTIMATE COLLECTION - VOLUMES 1 & 2!!

If you love the sci-fi films that Hollywood specialized in during the 1950s, either because you saw them in theatres, or in the seventies on late night TV, then this is the set for you...or maybe even your Dad...Father's Day is coming up after all!!

The set includes Tarantula, The Mole People, The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Monolith Monsters, Monster on the Campus, Dr. Cyclops, Cult of the Cobra, The Land Unknown, The Leech Woman and The Deadly Mantis, featuring a huge praying mantis that is on the attack in metropolitan cities after being released from an Arctic iceberg.

If you grew up with these films, go ahead, enjoy them all once again!!

As for me, I love this stuff!!

Finally this week is the new release that I mentioned that I could speak at length about, but since I didn't have much to say about this week's other new releases, I won't go on and on about this one either....even though I absolutely enjoyed every second of my time watching it!!

"It" is THE MUPPET SHOW - THE COMPLETE THIRD SEASON and this 4-disc set features guest stars Roy Clark, Gilda Radner, Alice Cooper, Loretta Lynn, Liberace, Raquel Welch, Danny Kaye, Sylvester Stallone, Roy Rogers & Dale Evans and Cheryl Ladd.

It also features my beloved Muppets!!

Even though these episodes are 32 years old, and even though I have seen them all dozens of times over the years, I still laughed a lot this past week when I watched them again.

But I promised to not ramble on, so I will stop at that.


The COMPLETE THIRD SEASON of the spectacular THE MUPPET SHOW, the 6 DVD, 10 movie set - THE CLASSIC SCI-FI ULTIMATE COLLECTION - VOLUMES 1 & 2!!, DIARY OF THE DEAD - for Zombie Film Officiandoes only, NATIONAL TREASURE - BOOK OF SECRETS - a movie that is good to see if the new INDIANA JONES film is sold out, and the quirky, mildly entertaining Canadian film WALK ALL OVER ME are all available now on DVD.

Coming up on the next Couch Potato Report

THE WHA CHRONICLES is a three disc set that looks back at the old World Hockey Association.

John Cusack plays a man who's wife dies in Iraq in the drama GRACE IS GONE.

THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE is one of those classic films that will have me saying: "They don't make them like this anymore!!"

And if you need an alternative to the action filled, very loud, check-your-brain-at-the-door summer movie, well, once again next week I will give you one as THE FOREIGN FILM FESTIVAL ON DVD returns with the Dutch film WAITER!

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!

"Law & Order: CI" is returning for 8th season

LOS ANGELES - "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" will remain on the case for another season on USA Network.

The show has been renewed for a 16-episode eighth year, the network said Thursday.

Part of the three-series "Law & Order" franchise created by Dick Wolf, "Criminal Intent" originally aired on NBC. But when the network decided that this season's schedule had room for only two of the shows, a deal was struck to air "Criminal Intent" first on USA, then on NBC.

NBC and USA are corporate cousins within NBC Universal, and "Criminal Intent" reruns on USA already had proved among its most popular programming.

"We're thrilled to have 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent' for another season," Bonnie Hammer, president of NBCU Cable Entertainment & Cable Studio, said in a statement, adding that USA "forged new ground" by debuting what had been an established network series.

Wolf, executive producer of the "Law & Order" shows, said in a statement that "Criminal Intent" has "thrived in its new home on USA and will for years to come."

The new order from USA trims the series from the 22 episodes that were ordered for the seventh season. The show returns Sunday, June 8, after a break.

"Criminal Intent," which looks at cases from both the perspective of police and lawbreakers, stars Vincent D'Onofrio, Kathryn Erbe, Julianne Nicholson and Eric Bogosian. Chris Noth, of the "Sex and the City" TV show and movie, also stars.

Both "Law & Order" and spinoff "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" will return to NBC next season.

It will be season 19 for the original series, second only to "Gunsmoke," which aired from 1955 to 1975, as the longest-running network TV drama series. "Special Victims Unit" will be in its 10th year.

"Indiana Jones" cracks whip at box office opening

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Paramount Pictures appears to have another hit on its hands, as the new "Indiana Jones" movie grossed $25 million from its first full day in North American theaters, independent box office analysts reported on Friday.

That tally ranks as the fourth highest-grossing Thursday debut on record and puts "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" on track to possibly match or overtake last year's "Pirates of the Caribbean" film as the biggest opening on a U.S. Memorial Day holiday weekend.

The last big release from Viacom Inc's Paramount, "Iron Man," opened three weeks ago with $98.6 million in U.S.-Canadian receipts its first Friday-through-Sunday frame -- a sum that the latest "Indiana Jones" film is expected to surpass.

Unlike the new "Indiana Jones" film, "Iron Man" was fully financed by Marvel Studios, which paid Paramount a flat fee to market and distribute its film. Thus, Paramount has much more at stake riding on the success of its latest release.

"Crystal Skull," directed by Steven Spielberg, is the fourth movie in the beloved and lucrative movie franchise that began in 1981 with "Raiders of the Lost Ark," and is the first to hit the big screen in 19 years.

Harrison Ford reprises his title role as the bullwhip-cracking archeologist who hates snakes, and reunites with actress Karen Allen, his co-star from the first adventure. In the new film, set during the 1950s Cold War era, he competes with an evil KGB agent played by Cate Blanchett to find a skull endowed with mystic powers.

Box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers, said the film's opening Thursday performance was strong enough to bode well for its commercial potential but not so strong as to diminish its weekend audience.

If its Friday-through-Monday box office tally crosses the $140 million mark, the film would exceed last year's Walt Disney Co's "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" as the biggest North American opening yet for the four-day Memorial Day holiday weekend.

"They have a strong shot at meeting or exceeding that Pirates of the Caribbean number last year," Dergarabedian told Reuters.

By comparison, the highest-grossing Thursday debut at the domestic box office was the $50 million raked in three years ago by "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith," according to Box Office Mojo.

Indiana Jones on trail of box office grail

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Industry tracking shows German filmmaker Uwe Boll's "Postal" making a late surge in prerelease polling against "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."

Psych!

Actually, "Postal" appears to be going nowhere. Major movie theater chains refused to play the September 11-related farce, so it's now tagged for distribution starting Friday in just 13-15 theaters in seven markets. Boll, the filmmaker behind the "BloodRayne" fantasy series, had hoped for as many as 1,500 playdates.

There is one other result from exhibitors' revolt against "Postal," which spins a fantastical yarn featuring President Bush, Osama bin Laden and assorted September 11 references: high prospects of a quick detour to DVD bins.

Meanwhile, Paramount's latest Indiana Jones adventure debuted in about 2,000 locations at a 12:01 a.m. Thursday. Many venues sold out for the earliest showtimes, with playdates set to swell to at least 4,260 by Friday.

Paramount executives hope that "Skull" can outgross in its five-day debut the $151.1 million earned by Sony's "Spider-Man 3" over a three-day frame in May 2007.

Pity the other films on offer this weekend. Disney's family-fantasy sequel "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" bears particularly close watching, after opening at No. 1 last week with a disappointing $55 million.

Original Rush drummer dies

TORONTO - Fans around the world are expressing their sorrow over the death of drummer John Rutsey, a co-founding member of the seminal rock band Rush.

Rutsey, who left the group after recording their first album in 1974, died last week in Toronto from complications stemming from a lifelong battle with diabetes.

His family announced the death in newspaper notices. He was 55.

Rutsey co-founded Rush with lead singer Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson in 1968, but left the group for health reasons.

He was replaced by drummer and lyricist Neil Peart just before the group's first U.S. tour.

On the Rush website, Lee and Lifeson say they fondly recall their early days with Rutsey and say that he will be deeply missed.

"Those years spent in our teens dreaming of one day doing what we continue to do decades later are special," they state.

"Although our paths diverged many years ago, we smile today, thinking back on those exciting times and remembering John's wonderful sense of humour and impeccable timing."

The family has requested donations be made in Rutsey's memory to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Meanwhile, online condolences poured in from Rush fans around the world, with responses to one newspaper notice including messages from Australia, Germany, the United States, Ireland and the United Kingdom.

"You were the ORIGINAL drummer in the greatest band in the world," writes Douglas Walsh of Metairie, La.

"If not for YOU, who knows what would have happened! Although you may not have known it, you were loved and respected by all Rush fans and the band themselves. God bless ya man! Drum on!"

Cook triumphs over Archuleta on 'American Idol'

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The grown-up rocker triumphed over the smooth-voiced kid as David Cook claimed the "American Idol" title Wednedsay, and it wasn't as much of a surprise as it seemed.

While 17-year-old Archuleta was heaped with praise by the judges the night before, the voters decided otherwise — and did they ever. Host Ryan Seacrest said during Wednesday's show that 12 million votes was the difference, and they broke in the favor of the 25-year-old from Blue Springs, Mo.

Cook was overcome by emotion, bending toward the stage after his name was announced.

"This is amazing," he said. "This is all your fault," he added, addressing the brother who Cook had accompanied to the "Idol" audition that started it all.

Cook immediately took the microphone and began to sing "Time of my Life," which won the annual "Idol songwriting competition, to close out season seven.

Cook refused to bow to the conventional during his three-song set Tuesday, with Collective Soul's "The World I Know" as his pick for a closing performance. He also sang U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and the power ballad "Dream Big," his choice from the songwriting competition's finalists.

"If I had to choose between playing a song that not a whole lot of people know that I could get behind, or the opposite, I'll choose the lesser-known every time," Cook told The Associated Press backstage Tuesday.

Judge Simon Cowell said at the time that the song choices sunk him, and told Archuleta that he'd scored a "knockout" performance in the boxing-themed performance finale.

Cook was unshaken, and now his choices are vindicated.

With a record 97.5 million audience votes cast by phone and text, the split between the two contestants was 56 percent for one David and 44 percent for the other, Seacrest announced at the start of the show.

Hedley leads MMVA nominations

TORONTO - Pop-rock pranksters Hedley lead the nominees for this year's MuchMusic Video Awards, ensuring a wild carnival ride for the annual celebrity street party.

Jacob Hoggard and the boys snagged six nods while rapper Belly and pop band IllScarlett each got five nominations. The annual music show, traditionally an off-the-wall spectacle that overtakes Toronto's trendy Queen Street with a red carpet and live performances, airs live June 15.

Last year, members of Hedley showed up with a nude male blow-up doll and the previous year they dropped their pants on the red carpet.

Other multiple nominees this year include three for Simple Plan and two each for City and Colour, Feist and Sam Roberts.

International nominees include Fall Out Boy, Flo Rida, Kanye West, Rihanna, and Timbaland Presents OneRepublic.

Performers are expected to be announced next week.

Grammy Awards set 2009 date

The Recording Academy has set Feb. 8, 2009, as the date the 51st Annual Grammy Awards, to be held once again from the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

The Grammys have been telecast live from the Staples Center since 2000, with one exception coming in 2003, when the awards were held in New York.

The 2009 awards will once again fall on a Sunday, where, overall, the show has enjoyed solid TV ratings. In 2006, the Grammys aired on a Wednesday and lost its night to "American Idol," but bounced back in 2007. This year's telecast, which featured performances from Alicia Keys, Kanye West and Amy Winehouse, scored 17.5 million total viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research, about a 12% dip from the 2007 broadcast.

With today's announcement from the Recording Academy, the eligibility period for the 2009 Grammy Awards has also been confirmed. Once again, the Grammys will recognize albums released between Oct. 1, 2007, and Sept. 30, 2008. While allowing more time for votes to be tabulated, the eligibility period forces the Grammys to recognize some of the year's blockbuster releases a year late, as October and November tend to be two of the music industry's busiest months.

Set to open prior to next year's Grammy telecast will be the 30,000-square-foot Grammy Museum, located next to the Staples Center at the L.A. Live entertainment complex (home to the Nokia Theatre). The four-floor museum, with a small theater and a rooftop terrace for private events, is slated to open in late 2008, according to a Grammy spokeswoman.

Nominations for the 51st Annual Grammy Awards will be announced on Dec. 4 from Los Angeles. The Feb. 9, 2009, awards will once again be broadcast live on CBS, airing on a tape delay for West Coast viewers.

Lee: Eastwood omitted black troops in WWII films

CANNES, France - Spike Lee is slamming Clint Eastwood over his two recent Iwo Jima movies, saying the filmmaker overlooked the role of black soldiers during World War II.

Lee — whose next film is this fall's "Miracle at St. Anna," the story of an all-black U.S. division fighting in Italy during the war — said Eastwood's 2006 movies "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima" were whites-only affairs.

"He did two films about Iwo Jima back to back and there was not one black soldier in both of those films," Lee said Tuesday at the Cannes Film Festival, where he was a judge in an online short-film competition.

"Many veterans, African-Americans, who survived that war are upset at Clint Eastwood. In his vision of Iwo Jima, Negro soldiers did not exist. Simple as that. I have a different version," Lee said.

Eastwood was in Cannes for his missing-child drama "Changeling," starring Angelina Jolie. At a news conference for the film, a reporter tried to ask for his reaction to Lee's criticism, but the moderator cut her off and told journalists to limit questions to Eastwood's own movie.

Due in U.S. theaters in October, "Miracle at St. Anna" centers on four Americans — played by Derek Luke, Michael Ealy, Laz Alonso and Omar Benson Miller — in the Buffalo Soldiers division in Tuscany.

Ouch! Harrison Ford waxes chest to make a point

NEW YORK - Harrison Ford pulled a Steve Carell for a public service announcement: He gets his chest waxed. The 65-year-old star winces in apparent pain as a strip of hair is yanked from between his pecs for a PSA for Conservation International to raise awareness about the effect of deforestation on global warming.

The actor, who doesn't typically appear in such TV spots, sits on the board of directors of the Washington-based environmental organization.

Conservation International CEO Peter Seligmann said Ford was game to do the 30-second spot, and approved of the waxing concept.

"I didn't have to talk him into anything," Seligmann said at a news conference Tuesday in Manhattan. "I was there when he filmed it. It really hurt. There's nothing about the expression on his face that was fake."

The classic scene from 2005's "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" — in which Carell screams out "Kelly Clarkson!" during his chest hair removal — was intentionally hilarious. Ford's message, however, is serious: "Every bit of rain forest that gets ripped out over there, really hurts us over here."

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," co-starring Ford, Shia LaBeouf and Karen Allen, opens nationwide on Thursday.

'Dancing with the Stars' Hough sets aside dancing shoes

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - When "Dancing with the Stars" champ Julianne Hough came to town to make her debut album, Nashville's songwriters went to work churning out a bunch of songs about — what else? — dancing.

Big mistake.

"Each one that said dancing (in the title), I said 'Nope, sorry,' Hough, 19, recalled over coffee recently.

For now at least, Hough, whose self-titled CD comes out Tuesday, wants people to forget she's a dancer and think of her as a singer.

She's been doing both since she was a little girl and had actually begun pursuing a career in music before "Dancing with the Stars." She had reservations about doing the show in the first place.

"I didn't want to get pigeonholed as being a dancer, and then when I start in music people think 'Oh, just because she got this exposure, now she thinks she can sing,'" said Hough, a blonde with a bubbly voice and sparkly blue eyes.

The youngest of five children, Hough comes from a family of dancers and singers in the Salt Lake City area (her sister Marabeth Poole co-wrote one of tunes on her CD, and her brother Derek, who was also on "Dancing with the Stars," sings on it). She was playing bongos and singing in the family's country band by the time she was 4.

"We're all blond and we were kind of known as the blond Osmonds," she giggled. "We were known as 'White Lightning' because of our hair. It's kind of embarrassing now. But we were in these bold Spandex and black cowboy boots and black fringe vests and black cowboy hats."

She studied dance in Utah and then in London for five years. But by 14 she yearned for a more conventional life back home with her family, and she realized that it was singing, rather than dancing, that was her greatest passion.

"I knew if I stayed in London my whole life would be dancing. I'd won almost every major title you can. I thought 'This really isn't my passion. I really want to sing,' and I knew I wouldn't be able to if I stayed there."

She returned to the U.S. and began pursuing music seriously — until "Dancing with the Stars" came along and was too good to pass up.

Hough joined for the show's fourth season and won with her partner Olympic speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno. She repeated the next year with Indianapolis 500 champion Helio Castroneves. For her third season, she teamed with comedian Adam Carolla but was eliminated in April.

"I wouldn't take it back, even though it might have slowed my singing down a little," she said. "I feel that now that I've mastered dancing I can pursue singing."

Her sound is country-pop in the vein of her musical heroes Faith Hill, Shania Twain and Martina McBride. The CD's first single is a breezy uptempo tune called "That Song in My Head" that was No. 31 on Billboard.

"Obviously it's still very young on the charts, but I think it has a lot of upside," remarked Tim Roberts, program director at WYCD in Detroit. "I think it really connects with women her age."

With her TV popularity, comparisons to "American Idol" alum Carrie Underwood are inevitable. But Underwood's path from music show to music career was much more direct. Hough's situation is more akin to an actor trying to become a recording star, and, historically, those transitions don't always go well.

"Does it help? Of course it does," said Luke Lewis, chairman of Universal Music Group Nashville, which includes Huff's Mercury Records label. "She's a highly recognizable celebrity at this point, so we don't have to spend a lot of time trying to educate people to who she is — just to the fact that she can sing really well."

So well that Lewis says he signed her without even seeing her on "Dancing With the Stars." He considers her dancing a bonus that reminds him of Twain, who's also on his roster. But don't look for the label to play up Hough's fancy footwork. On that, Lewis and Hough are dancing to the same tune.

"We don't want it to be the first thing that comes into somebody's mind," Lewis said. "She's got to build a career as a country artist just like everybody else."

New Kids on the Block fill in tour schedule

New Kids on the Block have mapped out a full North American run to kick off their international reunion tour.

The trek is now scheduled to launch Sept. 19 in Toronto and visit about 35 cities across the US and into Canada through late November.

The first round of arena shows went on sale earlier this month, and sellouts have already been logged in Toronto; Atlantic City, NJ; Uncasville, CT; and Rosemont, IL, according to the New Kids website. Second nights were added in most of those markets. An updated itinerary is listed below.

The boy band, whose members are now pushing 40, gave screaming fans a taste of what's to come last week when they performed together publicly for the first time in 15 years on NBC-TV's "Today" show. They followed that with a couple of radio festivals on the East Coast.

Last month, the bandmates--Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, Jordan Knight, Jonathan Knight and Danny Wood--appeared on the "Today" show to announce they were back together and working on a new album, which is due this fall. Their first new single, "Summertime," is currently available at digital outlets and is streaming at NKOTB's MySpace page.

Concert-goers who purchase a ticket/album bundle will get the "Summertime" MP3 immediately, and their downloads will come with an additional audio program, "The Making of the Album," which includes interviews with the New Kids. Further details are available at the group's website.

As teenagers, New Kids on the Block sold more than 70 million records and racked up back-to-back No. 1 albums with 1988's "Hangin' Tough" and 1990's "Step by Step." Their R&B/pop crossover hits included "You Got It (The Right Stuff)," "Cover Girl," "Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time)," "Hangin' Tough," "I'll Be Loving You," "Step By Step" and "Tonight." Following the whirlwind of success and the world tours, the group quietly disbanded in 1994.

Since then, McIntyre, Wood and Jordan Knight have released solo albums; Wahlberg has made a name for himself as an actor; and Jonathan Knight became a real estate developer, according to various reports.

September 2008
19 - Toronto, Ontario - Air Canada Centre
20 - Montreal, Quebec - Bell Centre
21 - Toronto, Ontario - Air Canada Center
23 - East Rutherford, NJ - Izod Center
24 - Uniondale, NY - Nassau Coliseum
26 - Boston, MA - TD Banknorth Garden
27 - Atlantic City, NJ - Borgata Hotel & Casino Event Center
28 - Boston, MA - TD Banknorth Garden
30 - Uncasville, CT - Mohegan Sun Arena

October 2008
2 - Washington, DC - Verizon Center
3 - Cleveland, OH - Quicken Loans Arena
4 - Rosemont, IL - Allstate Arena
8 - Los Angeles, CA - Staples Center
10 - San Jose, CA - HP Pavilion
11 - Las Vegas, NV - Mandalay Bay
13 - Glendale, AZ - Jobing.com Arena
16 - Houston, TX - Toyota Center
17 - San Antonio, TX - AT&T Center
19 - Dallas, TX - American Airlines Center
21 - Saint Paul, MN - Xcel Energy Center
22 - Milwaukee, WI - Bradley Center
24 - Rosemont, IL - Allstate Arena
25 - Auburn Hills, MI - Palace Of Auburn Hills
27 - New York, NY - Madison Square Garden
29 - Duluth, GA - Gwinnett Center

November 2008
1 - Sunrise, FL - BankAtlantic Center
2 - Tampa, FL - St. Pete Times Forum
5 - Philadelphia, PA - Spectrum
10 - St. Louis, MO - Scottrade Center
11 - Kansas City, MO - Sprint Center
12 - Omaha, NE - Qwest Center
14 - Broomfield, CO - Broomfield Event Center
15 - West Valley City, UT - The E Center
17 - Edmonton, Alberta - Rexall Place
21 - Vancouver, British Columbia - General Motors Place
22 - Seattle, WA - Key Arena
23 - Portland, OR - Rose Garden Arena
26 - San Diego, CA - San Diego Sports Arena

Former NHL-ers star in music video

TORONTO - Canadian teams may be out of the Stanley Cup playoffs, but that hasn't kept Ottawa singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards from creating her own bit of NHL fun.

The acclaimed roots-rocker is hitting the ice with a hockey-themed music video for the song "I Make The Dough, You Get The Glory," off her current disc, "Asking For Flowers."

Former NHL-ers Marty McSorley, Paul Coffey and Brad Dalgarno join Edwards and her band for a lopsided game of shinny that also features sportscaster Dave Hodge as well as Blue Rodeo singer Jim Cuddy in a villainous role.

"I've always wanted to make a hockey video - my whole life I thought it would be the funniest thing and I've never really had a warm reception to the idea," Edwards says from San Diego, Calif., where she's on tour.

"It's about to be summer and my record company was like, 'We need to make a summer video.' I don't want to make a summer video, I want to make a hockey video!"

In the video, Edwards straps on hockey skates for a faceoff against Cuddy but finds herself woefully unprepared - she can barely stand on the ice and Cuddy has stacked his team with an all-star roster of former NHL greats.

Things take a turn for the better when Coffey, an NHL hall of famer, shows her how to skate, and enforcer McSorley shows her how to hip-check.

"There's also this little side fantasy-type moment where...there's a kissing scene!" Edwards gushes.

"It was the best day ever, I have to say, just filming this video was so fun."

Although Edwards' song, "I Make The Dough, You Get The Glory," name-drops McSorley, it isn't even about hockey.

It's about her friendship with one of her bandmates, with lyrics that pair contrasting images like: "You're the Great One, I'm Marty McSorley," referring to superstar player Wayne Gretzky and his on-ice protector.

Snagging the hockey greats for the video was a matter of connecting through managers and friends of friends, says Edwards, noting that Cuddy is a hockey nut and buddies with Coffey.

It took a few weeks of wrangling, but the 45-year-old McSorley jumped on board despite recently having hip surgery, says Edwards.

On the ice, 47-year-old Coffey impressed her with his fitness during the 10-hour shoot at St. Michael's arena in Toronto.

"I did feel his thigh and it's still about as rock hard as you can imagine," she says. "The guy's got crazy, crazy athletic legs."

Edwards and her band have been on the road for much of the playoffs, but she says they've managed to follow the race for the Stanley Cup pretty closely.

"We actually watch the games right up until the time when we hit the stage," she says.

"And then we have a guy onstage with a laptop - because he's got some effects running through it - and he gets the little updates on the scores as the game progresses if the game's not over. So, we generally know what's going on."

Edwards has spent much of the past two months on an extensive U.S. tour, but heads north for a string of dates in British Columbia and Alberta beginning May 25.

Her affection for hockey stretches back to when she was a kid, but she says it's the community vibe that surrounds the game that draws her in.

"I think I like more the spirit of hockey, which is that it brings people together - everyone meets at the bar after work and has some beers and watches the game," says Edwards, whose third disc, "Asking For Flowers," came out last month.

"I just kind of love that camaraderie of hockey, it's a real community thing for me."

The video is set for release next week.

New CD Releases, May 20: Foxboro Hot Tubs, 3 Doors Down, Donna Summer...Scarlett Johansson?!?

Foxboro Hot Tubs "Stop, Drop and Roll"

Things are heating up for the Foxboro Hot Tubs, an alter ego of platinum-plus-selling punk-rockers Green Day [ tickets ]. The band is now ready to issue its debut album under the Hot Tubs moniker--"Stop, Drop and Roll."

The Green Day guys admitted last month that they are the secret identities of the Foxboro Hot Tubs. What's the difference between the two bands? Fans can find out by listening to the new album, which features the hit single "Mother Mary," or they can go see the Hot Tubs in concert. The group kicks off an eight-show, small-venue trek today (5/19).

Meanwhile, there's no word as to when Green Day will release a follow-up to 2004's multi-platinum-selling "American Idiot," which topped The Billboard 200 chart and won a Grammy for Best Rock Album.

* * *
3 Doors Down "3 Doors Down"

The popular alt-rock act, which has sold more than 13 million records to date, returns with its eponymous fourth album. The group reportedly spent 11 months in the studio working on the set, which follows the 2005 chart-topper "Seventeen Days."

The lead single from the new record is "It's Not My Time," which is already a radio hit. The band did, however, previously release one track from the set--the song "Citizen Soldier"--which was used in 2007 as part of a major promotional campaign for the National Guard.

The Mississippi/Nashville-based group will support "3 Doors Down" on tour with fellow alt-rockers Hinder and Staind. The trek kicks off with a Fourth of July show in Michigan.

* * *
Donna Summer "Crayons"

The '70s disco queen returns with her first studio album in 17 years. Her previous batch of new material came with 1991's "Mistaken Identity."

The 12 tracks on "Crayons"--all co-written by Summer--cover everything from pop to world music to retro-modern dance. For this project, she worked with such big-name producers and writers as Greg Kurstin (Lily Allen) and Evan Bogart (Rihanna).

Summer will tour throughout the summer in support of "Crayons." The trek begins June 24 in Nashville.

* * *
The Dresden Dolls "No, Virginia"

The indie cabaret duo--pianist Amanda Palmer and drummer Brian Viglione--is set to release a follow-up to 2006's critically acclaimed "Yes, Virginia." "No, Virginia" is a collection of b-sides, rarities and covers (including one of the Psychedelic Furs' "Pretty in Pink"). The twosome is currently on the road, conducting a 10-city tour in support of the new album.

* * *
Scarlett Johansson "Anywhere I Lay My Head"

The Hollywood star turns to the songbook of Tom Waits with her debut CD. "Anywhere I Lay My Head" features Johansson covering 11 Waits numbers, including "Town With No Cheer," "I Wish I Was in New Orleans" and "Song for Jo."

* * *
More new releases:
Bun B, "II Trill" (Rap-a-Lot)
James Carter, "Present Tense" (Emarcy)
Flobots, "Fight With Tools" (Universal)
Julianne Hough, "Julianne Hough" (Mercury Nashville)
Mason Jennings, "In the Ever" (Brushfire)
William Joseph, "Beyond" (Warner Bros)
King's X, "XV" (Inside Out)
Sonny Landreth, "From the Reach" (Landfall)
Mates of State, "Re-Arrange Us" (Barsuk)
Jesse McCartney, "Departure" (Hollywood)
Pat Metheny, "Tokyo Day Trip--Live EP" (Nonesuch)
John McLaughlin, "Floating Point" (Abstract Logix)
Orchestra Baobab, "Made in Dakar" (Nonesuch)
The Yellowjackets, "Lifecycle" (Heads Up)

Soundtracks and scores:
"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (Concord)

Brian Wilson Returns To Capitol For New Album

After issuing his recent work on Rhino and Nonesuch, Beach Boys principal Brian Wilson has returned to Capitol Records for the release of his next album, "That Lucky Old Sun." The set is due Sept. 2.

"That Lucky Old Sun," which centers around the Southern California of Wilson's youth, was premiered last September at London's Royal Festival Hall. The work comprises 11 new songs plus four spoken narratives written by longtime collaborator Van Dyke Parks and a vocal excerpt.

It's Wilson's first new studio album since 2004's "Gettin' in Over My Head." Also that year, he completed work on the long-unfinished album "Smile," originally intended for release by the Beach Boys in the mid-1960s.

Wilson has a handful of U.K. and North American tour dates on tap this summer, beginning June 28 in London and wrapping with a Sept. 12-14 stand at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.

Here is the track list for "That Lucky Old Sun":

"That Lucky Old Sun"
"Morning Beat"
"That Lucky Old Sun" (narrative)
"Good Kind of Love"
"Forever My Surfer Girl"
"That Lucky Old Sun" (narrative)
"Live Let Live"
"Mexican Girl"
"That Lucky Old Sun" (narrative)
"California Role"
"That Lucky Old Sun" (narrative)
"Oxygen"
"Can't Wait Too Long" (vocal excerpt)
"Midnight's Another Day"
"Going Home"
"Southern California"

Inside Ashlee and Pete's Wedding

Los Angeles (E! Online) - Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz got hitched Saturday night under tents and amid tight security, but E! News has an insider's account of the top-secret wedding ceremony and reception.

The ceremony was held in the backyard of parents Joe and Tina Simpson, decorated in an Alice in Wonderland theme.

"It was magical and beautiful," says the guest, who termed the whole affair "The Joe Simpson Show."

After escorting Ashlee down the aisle, Joe Simpson regaled the 100-plus guests with funny and touching stories of his daughter before performing the brief ceremony himself. The elder Simpson got choked up throughout the ceremony, as did Ashlee and Jessica. "They were all crying," says the source. "It was very moving."

Seeming to acknowledge the challenges of marrying into the Simpson family, at one point Joe quipped, "Pete is a very patient guy."

Ashlee wore an ivory Monique Lhuillier gown with a veil for the ceremony, while the bridesmaids were draped in black Vera Wang numbers. The men wore black tuxes with skinny black ties. Guests had been asked to wear dark clothing, and most everyone did, with attire ranging from black jeans and sports coats, to fancy black tuxes and dresses.

The reception and dinner followed.

Jessica and Tony Romo sat at the wedding party table, but the guest observes, "Jessica did not look happy the entire night. She just wasn't her bubbly self. She was very subdued and she and Tony barely interacted the entire night, except for some dancing at the end.

"You could tell she was really happy for her sister, but that maybe she was a little bit sad that things aren't working out as well for her."

Jessica did, however, give a very emotional, off-the-cuff speech toast, saying that Pete and Ashlee's relationship "has inspired me to love again" and spoke very affectionately of her little sister.

"She apologized for not writing anything more formal," the guest says, "but it was very much from the heart."

Wentz's brother also gave a toast.

The guest says that for a wedding of two musicians it subdued, with a deejay and no band. "It was weird. No one was dancing. There was like nobody on the dance floor until after they cut the cake, and then people finally danced." After taking photos, the bride livened up and slipped into a "sexy black party dress" and danced. "She managed to hide her pregnancy pretty well," the source says. "She really didn't look pregnant."

Guests were required to check their cell phones and cameras outside the tent. "You could step out and make a call, but you had to check the phone in before returning back inside. It wasn't a big deal. Everyone there gets it." The reception did experience some drama. At one point later in the night, Ashlee lost one of her diamond earrings. "Pete got on the mic and told everyone to look for the earrings," the guest says. "He said they cost more than the entire wedding!" Within a few minutes, a guest found the missing baubles.

By about 1:30 a.m., the reception had died down and most guests had left. "It was beautiful. It was truly intimate and friends and family only. It wasn't a Hollywood wedding at all," says the attendee.

Guests were given a parting gift: a red box containing a cookie inscribed "Eat Me."

Good or bad, Indiana star Ford won't read reviews

CANNES, France (Reuters) - Good or bad, actor Harrison Ford will not be reading reviews of the new Indiana Jones movie, which divided the Cannes film festival's notoriously picky critics.

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" had its world premiere at the annual festival on Sunday, and initial reaction was positive.

But with a little more time to reflect on a blockbuster that cost an estimated $185 million to make, reviews have become decidedly more mixed.

"I suppose it would be interesting, but I don't read reviews," Ford told Reuters in an interview to promote the film.

"I don't want to believe the bad stuff and I don't want to believe the good stuff. It doesn't really matter," added Ford, who reprises probably his most famous on-screen role as the whip-wielding archaeologist at the age of 65.

In Crystal Skull, he teams up again with Karen Allen, his co-star from the first Indiana Jones film in 1981.

They are up against an evil KGB agent, played by Australia's Cate Blanchett, who is seeking to harness the power of a skull which leads them on a high-octane adventure ending with a dramatic encounter with extra terrestrials.

Reviews appearing on the Internet within minutes of the end of the press screening in Cannes were largely positive.

Several, though, have since questioned the wisdom of resurrecting a successful franchise which last hit the screens 19 years ago.

"There's a reason the previous Indy film was called 'The Last Crusade'," wrote David Gritten of the Daily Telegraph. "Now it's ... time to entomb this elderly series once and for all."

"KICK YOUR BUTT"

Cannes, which is a major showcase of independent film making but thrives also on the star power Hollywood brings, has a fearsome reputation among actors and directors.

"They can kick your butt here and will if they're not happy with the movie, so I think we got a pretty good reception," Ford said, referring to the world premiere screening.

Blanchett added that veteran director Steven Spielberg was not immune to negative response.

"Steven was wanting to throw up before he went into the press conference he was so nervous about the response and I think it's because he cares," she told Reuters.

For Ford, the cinema-goer, not the critic, matters most.

"It's the people who pay to get in, and whether they are getting satisfaction for their dollars spent," he said.

Even critics underwhelmed by the latest Indiana Jones venture conceded that it would make little difference in terms of box office, which they predicted would be strong.

Studio Paramount would have preferred more unanimous praise for one of this year's biggest movies, but they were also likely to be breathing a sigh of relief that it avoided the critical mauling another recent blockbuster had in Cannes.

"The Da Vinci Code" was universally loathed in 2006, and while it went on to make an estimated $760 million at the global box office, it was an uncomfortable opening.

Ulrich Promises 'Dynamic' New Metallica Album

Metallica is "a couple of nips and tucks" away from completing its next album, which is still on target for a September release, according to drummer Lars Ulrich.

During a conference call yesterday on Thursday promoting this year's Bonnaroo Music Festival, which Metallica will headline on June 13, Ulrich told reporters that the group hopes to wrap up work on the album in time for the Memorial Day weekend holiday. Metallica recently met with a graphic designer to begin planning the package, though there's no confirmed title for the album yet and the songs still have working names.

"We sort of promised ourselves that unlike all the records we made in the '90s, [which] were just completely stressed-out and just nutty, that we were gonna try and have a little more sane environment -- and we've actually, surprising mostly to ourselves, been able to keep to that," Ulrich said. "We've pretty much finished the music now, so all the next level stuff is just starting to go down."

Ulrich said Metallica came into the project with 26 songs, which were knocked down to 14 when the group started working with producer Rick Rubin. There are now 11 slated for the album, though Ulrich said "length issues" might mean one more has to be eliminated.

"These are long songs ... we're talking seven-minute, eight-minute, nine-minute nutty-ass songs," Ulrich revealed. "We don't make them long or short on purpose; you just kind of do what feels natural. We're not really gonna edit them, (so) we're gonna lose another one at some point in the next month or so and probably end up with 10."

Ulrich described the material as "definitely pretty all over the place. There's a lot of variation, a lot of fast, slow, melodic ... kind of hardcore, nutty super-fast speed stuff. It's a little more like how some of the earlier records were a little more dynamic within the songs."

Ulrich was not sure how much of the new material Metallica will preview on the road this summer, although he said that "by the time we come to Bonnaroo hopefully we'll have some new stuff ready."

The group is playing radio festivals this weekend in Arizona and California before heading to Europe for an annual festival run that will be interrupted by Bonnaroo and the lone Ozzfest date on Aug. 9 in Frisco, Texas. An extensive North American tour is expected to follow the album's release.

Chesney after ACM win: Fan votes shouldn't decide

LAS VEGAS - Kenny Chesney won entertainer of the year for a fourth straight time Sunday, then promptly took issue with the way the Academy of Country music awarded the honor: through fan votes.

For the first time in the show's 43 years, the top prize — traditionally decided by ACM members — was determined through online voting. With the win, Chesney ties Garth Brooks and trails only Alabama, which won five in a row.

Chesney said immediately backstage that he thought fans should be included, just not by voting for the show's most important award.

"The entertainer of the year trophy is supposed to represent heart and passion and an amazing amount of sacrifice, commitment and focus," he said. "That's the way Garth won it four times, that's the way I won it, that's the way (George) Strait won it, Reba (McEntire), Alabama all those years. That's what it's supposed to represent."

He said his complaint is directed at the industry, not the fans — and that the method amounted to "complete disrespect" of the artists, saying the academy turned the award "into a sweepstakes to see who can push people's buttons the hardest on the Internet."

Messages left for officials with the Academy of Country Music Awards were not immediately returned Sunday night.

Chesney was the night's leading nominee with 11, and ended up winning twice. His other win was for vocal event of the year for his work on the Tracy Lawrence hit "Find Out Who Your Friends Are."

Brad Paisley won top male vocalist, his second in a row.

"I really want to say the reason I'm in country music is because my grandfather would make me listen to Buck Owens when I was like 4 years old, and I think Buck was the first male vocalist for this organization. I'm so honored to carry the torch for another year," Paisley said.

Carrie Underwood also took home her second consecutive female vocalist trophy.

"I know I don't deserve it, but I'll take it," Underwood said. "Fans got me everything I have, and I owe everything to you."

It was a night of repeats. Rascal Flatts' top vocal group win was its sixth in a row, while Brooks & Dunn won their 13th straight award for top vocal duo.

"We'd like to give God all the thanks and all the glory for giving us a stage to stand on every night," said Rascal Flatts singer LeVox. Bandmate Joe Don Rooney had other things on his mind. He glanced at his watch and said he had to get home. "I've got a baby coming any minute."

LeVox disagreed with Chesney about the night's top honor, saying he hoped it the fans continued to choose.

"It's about time," he said, calling fans "the reason that all three of us have jobs."

Dr. Phil presented Brooks & Dunn their award. "I'm glad Dr. Phil was here because we need therapy for this one," Kix Brooks cracked.

Miranda Lambert won album of the year and Sugarland took single record and song of the year honors for their mellow hit "Stay."

"I'm sitting right behind Kenny Chesney and I just don't feel right taking this," said Lambert, who won for her sophomore outing, "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend." "I'm a songwriter, and I poured my heart and soul into this album. Thank you for appreciating it."

The win was big for Lambert, who beat out superstars Chesney and Paisley, as well as hot new acts Taylor Swift and Rodney Atkins.

Jack Ingram won top new male vocalist. The 37-year-old Texan released his first album in 1992 and bounced around a number of record labels before his career took off.

"Sometimes it takes a long time and that's my story," Ingram said backstage. "I put in a lot of hard miles, and I'm thankful."

Lady Antebellum took home top new duo or vocal group. "Does this mean we get to hang out with Kenny Chesney now?," the trio's Charles Kelley joked.

Swift won top new female vocalist. The 18-year-old thanked her mother for going on the road with her beginning when she was 16, leaving behind a comfortable life to sleep in rental cars and on airplanes so her teenage daughter could pursue her dream.

"Mom, thank you so much," she said as she fought back tears. "I love you. This is for you."

Earlier, Brad Paisley's "Online" won video of the year. It was produced by former "Seinfeld" star Jason Alexander, who also co-starred and made an onstage appearance Sunday night, joking that he didn't believe the stereotype of country stars and fans being religious — seeing as he hadn't spotted any of them at synagogue.

Tracy Lawrence won vocal event of the year for "Find Out Who Your Friends Are" with Tim McGraw and Chesney.

"This is absolutely awesome," Lawrence said. "We moved a big mountain pulling this off."

Underwood the show, aired live from the MGM grand, with her rocker, "I Don't Even Know His Last Name." Strait, who was celebrating his 56th birthday, performed his 56th No. 1 hit: "I Saw God Today." Swift did "It Should Have Been Me" and ended it by getting drenched in a cascade of water.

Brooks received the ACM's Crystal Milestone Award and did a medley of his hits that included "The Thunder Rolls," "Friends in Low Places" and "More than a Memory."

Paisley and Underwood performed a stripped-down version of Eddy Arnold's classic "Make the World Go Away." Arnold died May 8, days short of his 90th birthday.

McEntire hosted the show for the 10th time, going back to 1986. In those days, she joked to open the show, "Underwood was a typewriter, Sugarland was doughnut shop and a Pickler was someone who made pickles.

"Back then, Roger Clemens wasn't even interested in country music," she cracked. Clemens recent acknowledged a long-standing relationship with country singer Mindy McCready that began when she was 15. The former baseball player maintains the relationship was not sexual.

'Prince Caspian' pushes 'Iron Man' off throne

LOS ANGELES - "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" dethroned "Iron Man" as ruler at the box office, pulling down $56.6 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The Walt Disney Co.'s action sequel took in less domestically in its opening weekend than "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe," which sold $65.6 million in North America in its debut weekend in December 2005. "Caspian" also raked in $20.7 million overseas.

But Disney expects the PG-rated movie, based on the C.S. Lewis fantasy series, to ride high through the coming Memorial Day weekend. The first "Narnia" tale grossed $745 million worldwide over its theatrical run.

"This is a film that we think is going to play all summer long and it's got nothing but school holidays in front of it," said Mark Zoradi, president of the Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Group.

Disney is in pre-production on the third of the series, "The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader," set for release in the summer of 2010.

Marvel Studios' "Iron Man" slipped to second place after two weeks at No. 1 with $31.2 million, bringing its domestic total to $222.5 million.

Paul Dergarabedian, president of tracking firm Media By Numbers LLC, said the flawed superhero flick is holding its appeal better than "Spider-Man 3" did the previous May.

"'Iron Man' continues to hold very well," he said. "It's definitely cutting into audiences across the board."

The 20th Century Fox comedy "What Happens in Vegas," starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, came in third, with $13.9 million in its second weekend. Its domestic total reached $40.3 million, well above its $35 million budget.

"It's clearly the comedy, non-family movie in the marketplace right now," said Chris Aronson, a Fox senior vice president.

Warner Bros.' disappointing "Speed Racer" slowed to $7.6 million for fourth place, driving in $29.8 million over two weeks.

The studio said it was not ready to call it game over on the Wachowski brothers movie, which cost $120 million to make.

Jeff Goldstein, Warner Bros.' executive vice president of distribution, said next weekend was "do or die" for the movie.

Overture Films' acclaimed drama, "The Visitor," crept into 10th place at the box office with $687,000.

The distributor picked up the indie film, about a professor who discovers a couple living in his little-used New York apartment, at the Toronto Film Festival for a reported $1 million. It has grossed $3.4 million so far.

"It's good to know that you don't have to have special effects in your movie to make money," said Overture Films' senior vice president Adam Keen.

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," which received a somewhat ho-hum reaction at the Cannes Film Festival on Sunday, whips its way into theaters on Thursday.

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. "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian," $56.6 million.
2. "Iron Man," $31.2 million.
3. "What Happens in Vegas," $13.9 million.
4. "Speed Racer," $7.6 million.
5. "Baby Mama," $4.6 million.
6. "Made of Honor," $4.5 million.
7. "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," $2.5 million.
8. "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay," $1.8 million.
9. "The Forbidden Kingdom," $1 million.
10. "The Visitor," $687,000.

The Couch Potato Report - May 17th, 2008

This week The Couch Potato Report peels 32 DVDs, including a great Canadian film that is making it's DVD debut.

Lots to get to this week, yes, you read that right, I have 32 DVDs to cover, so I
will jump right in with this week's Hot Potato - the DVD debut of the 1995 film
Dance Me Outside.

Based on a book by W.P. Kinsella, this is the cinematic story of life on a First
Nations Reserve in Northern Ontario.

Lifelong friends Silas and Frank are drifting through life trying to get into
college in Toronto, but they find themselves having to deal with girls, family ...
and murder.

The DVD's Special Features include the original theatrical trailer, interviews with
the cast, and a commentary with director Bruce McDonald and some of the cast and crew.

If you have never seen DANCE ME OUTSIDE, you should check it out as it is a very entertaining film.

Also very entertaining is SEASON THREE of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE!

This seven disc box set features the shows from 1977 and 1978 as it is completely hitting it's stride!

The cast - featuring John Belushi, Canadian Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Laraine
Newman, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtain, and Bill Murray - are at their best, The
Coneheads and Belushi's Samurai return, and some of the show's most beloved
characters were introduced to us for the very first time, including The Blues
Brothers, The Festrunk Brothers, Roseanne Roseannadanna, Point Counterpoint, and the folks at The Olympia Restaurant.

Toronto's Lorne Michaels created the show, and as a result, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2004, becoming the first non-American to earn this honour.

Some of the guest hosts during the THIRD SEASON of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE were Steve Martin, Hugh Hefner, Charles Grodin, Ray Charles, Robert Klein, Chevy Chase, O.J. Simpson, Michael Palin and Buck Henry and they are all featured on this great box set.

Ottawa's Matthew Perry hosted Saturday Night Live as well. He was the host on
Saturday October 4, 1997, and now that Universal Studios are planning on releasing two of these SNL Sets a year, we should have the set with his show on it sometime around 2017.

If you don't want to wait until then to see the former FRIEND on DVD, well Matthew Perry has a new film out right now on DVD.

He plays a chronically depressed screenwriter that suffers from acute
depersonalization disorder who meets the girl of his dreams in the made-in-British Columbia drama NUMB.

NUMB is one of those small films, released direct-to-DVD that has some good
moments..., moments when it isn't bad, but it also have a few scenes when it just is bad.

Those moments prevent me from completely recommending it, however, due to Perry's always reliable work, and a very good supporting cast, including up and coming actress Lynn Collins, I didn't dislike this movie.

If you don't see anything else on the shelf that you are interested in, give it a look.

Now, this week's next film is one that you will probably be very interested in, due to the fact that Cate Blanchette received an Oscar nomination for her work in it, and because it features six different characters who embody a different aspect of Bob Dylan's life and work.

But let me tell you, I'M NOT THERE is not for everybody.

It is fascinating and interesting, with some great performances and that incredible Bob Dylan music...but this is the textbook definition of an art film - a typically serious, noncommercial, independently made film that is aimed at a niche audience, rather than a mass audience.

I'M NOT THERE tells its story by trying to use the same non-traditional techniques that Dylan uses in his poetic narrative style of songwriting, and it is because of that that it's appeal is limited.

However, if you are a huge fan of Bob Dylan and his music, or if you have ever
wanted to see the great Cate Blanchett playing a character like Dylan in a film,
then you may enjoy this film a lot.

Personally, I am glad I had the chance to see it, but I will never sit through it
again.

I am just not the niche audience that it is meant for.

Up next is THE GREAT DEBATERS.

This is a film that is inspired by a true story from DIRECTOR Denzel Washington.

The director also plays a professor at a historically Black college in Texas who in
1935 inspired students to form the school's first debate team, and they went on to challenge Harvard in the national championship.

THE GREAT DEBATERS isn't a bad film, and it features a story that should be told, as the young students on the debate team face and rise above some horrific injustices, but this movie is way too dramatic, and at over two hours, I would argue that it is also much too long.

I neither recommend it, nor think that you should avoid it.

No, on the topic of the film THE GREAT DEBATERS, I posses neither a negative - or con - or even a positive - or pro - position.

However, when it comes to the cinematic work of Mr. Frank Sinatra, I am
all-pro...just as he was!

It was ten years ago this week that we lost The Chairman Of The Board and in
cooperation with his estate, Warner Home Video has released four sets of his movies - many never before available on DVD - and a few other DVDs to coincide with the anniversary of his passing.

The most notable of the four sets is the five film THE GOLDEN YEARS, containing
Sinatra's Oscar-nominated performance as a drug-addicted drummer in Otto Preminger's hard-hitting and taboo-busting 1955 film "The Man With the Golden Arm", which was previously available only on poor-quality public domain DVDs.

There is also THE EARLY YEARS COLLECTION, a 5-DVD set devoted to Sinatra's 1940s work in Hollywood, and THE FRANK SINATRA & GENE KELLY COLLECTION has the three lavish MGM musicals he did with with Gene Kelly, and then there is the new collectors' edition of four "Rat Pack" comedies with Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop - including the debut of "Sergeants 3," a mock Western long unavailable because it plagiarized "Gunga Din" without permission - and the original version of OCEAN'S 11.

And, in addition to the four new fantastic Sinatra box sets, SINATRA: THE MINISERIES from television is also now out and so is THE FIRST DEADLY SIN, his film with Faye Dunnaway where he plays a New York detective coping with his wife's mysterious and incurable illness - and hunting an ice hammer-wielding killer.

All of these releases help us remember that - in addition to his music - Frank
Sinatra was also a very talented actor, and they let us see his work before he
largely turned his back on acting a quarter century before his death, when he backed out of the title role in "Dirty Harry" and temporarily retired from show business.

Frank is a true legend, the type we may never see again....enjoy these sets!! I sure did!!

SINATRA: THE MINISERIES, THE FIRST DEADLY SIN and The Frank Sinatra Box Sets THE EARLY YEARS COLLECTION, THE GOLDEN YEARS COLLECTION, THE FRANK SINATRA & GENE KELLY COLLECTION and THE RAT PACK ULTIMATE COLLECTOR'S EDITION are all available now on DVD along with the earnest, but very flawed THE GREAT DEBATORS, the artsy-fartsy Bob Dylan tribute I'M NOT THERE, the mediocre, but okay NUMB starring Matthew Perry, the
fantastic COMPLETE THIRD SEASON of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE and the great Canadian film DANCE ME OUTSIDE.

I told you I had a lot to cover this week!

Coming up on the next Couch Potato Report

The Canadian film WALK ALL OVER ME is about a small town girl runs into big time trouble as she takes on her roommates identity as a dominatrix to pay the bills; NATIONAL TREASURE 2 - BOOK OF SECRETS picks up where the original one left off - with Nicolas Cage as a treasure hunter; and THE MUPPET SHOW - THE COMPLETE THIRD SEASON features Roy Clark, Gilda Radner, Alice Cooper, Loretta Lynn, Liberace, Raquel Welch, Danny Kaye, Sylvester Stallone, Roy Rogers & Dale Evans, Cheryl Ladd...oh, and The Muppets!!

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!

(There May Be SpoilersIn This Story...I Didn't Read It All!!!!)

Indy Jones survives Cannes critics at premiere

CANNES, France (AP) — Indiana Jones received louder applause going in than he did coming out. His latest adventure, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," earned a respectful — though far from glowing — reception Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival, the movie avoiding the sort of thrashing the event's harsh critics gave to "The Da Vinci Code" two years ago.

Yet Indy's fourth big-screen romp is not likely to go down as one of his most memorable. Some viewers at its first press screening loved it, some called it slick and enjoyable though formulaic, some said it was not worth the 19-year wait since Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Harrison Ford made the last film.

"They should have left well enough alone," said J. Sperling Reich, who writes for FilmStew.com. "It really looked like they were going through the motions. It really looked like no one had their heart in it."

Alain Spira of French magazine Paris Match found "Crystal Skull" a perfectly acceptable "Indiana Jones" tale, a sentiment echoed by the solid applause the movie received as the final credits rolled.

"It's good. It's a product that is polished, industrial, we're not getting ripped off in terms of quality," Spira said. "You know what you're going to see, you see what you get, and when you leave you're happy."

The applause was louder at the outset, though. Fans at the early afternoon showing, which preceded the film's glitzy formal premiere with cast and crew Sunday night, cheered and clapped wildly at an announcement that the screening was about to start. Some even hummed the Indiana Jones fanfare as the lights went down.

The applause at the end was more subdued.

The film received none of the derisive laughter or catcalls that mounted near the end of the first press screening for "Da Vinci Code."

There were a few titters from the "Crystal Skull" crowd early on over co-star Cate Blanchett's thick, Boris-and-Natasha accent as a Soviet operative racing against Indy to find an artifact of immeasurable power. The movie's rather corny romantic ending also drew a chuckle or two.

In between, the film packed a fair amount of action, though some viewers found the middle portion dull. Conchita Casanovas, of Spain's RNE radio, said she was "bored to death."

The new movie hurls archaeologist Jones into the Cold War in 1957. He survives a nuclear blast in the desert in typically creative fashion and is reunited with "Raiders" flame Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen).

As speculated, the film has an alien connection, though far more subdued than the "Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men From Mars" story Lucas once envisioned.

There are melancholy nods to Sean Connery, who played Indy's dad in 1989's "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" but declined to return for the new movie, and the late Denholm Elliott, Indy's college dean in two of the previous movies.

And the film reveals the relationship between Indy and his new sidekick, an angry young motorcycle rebel played by Shia LaBeouf.

As with "Da Vinci Code," which went on to gross $758 million worldwide, "Crystal Skull" is so hotly anticipated that it will be virtually immune from critics' opinions. The film is expected to put up blockbuster box-office numbers as it opens globally Thursday.

"The movie was absolutely effective enough to score with audiences everywhere," said Anne Thompson, deputy editor of Hollywood trade paper Variety. "This played way better than 'Da Vinci Code.' No one was gunning for it. They were excited going in, hooting for it in a positive way."

Dozens of fans prowled outside the Palais, the Cannes headquarters, holding signs saying they needed tickets for "Crystal Skull."

Amelia Sims, a 19-year-old University of Georgia student studying abroad, held a sign reading "I (heart) Indy." She managed to get a pass to the press screening and loved the movie.

"I guess I've been waiting 19 years for this," Sims said. "You could say I've been waiting my whole life."

But Christian Monggaard, who is reviewing "Crystal Skull" for Danish newspaper Information, said he grew up with the "Indiana Jones" films and came away from this one disappointed, finding the climax an "overblown special-effects extravaganza."

"Talk about a woman scorned," Monggaard said. "A fan scorned is even worse."

Shania Twain splits from husband

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Canadian country star Shania Twain has separated from her husband of 14 years, reclusive record producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange, People magazine reported on Thursday.

It quoted a spokesman as saying, "This is a private matter and there will be no further comment at this time." Twain, 42, and Lange, who is in his late 50s, have a a 6-year-old son named Eja.

The marriage between the sexy singer and the secretive Svengali famed for his work with such metal acts as AC/DC and Def Leppard, was an unlikely -- but highly lucrative -- partnership.

Lange produced Twain's three blockbuster albums, which have each sold more than 10 million copies in the United States. The glossy efforts, complemented by steamy video clips, crushed the barrier separating country and pop.

Like many men, Lange was entranced by one of Twain's videos, the first of many in which she showed off her famed belly button. He called her persistently, and they agreed to collaborate professionally. Six months after they eventually met, they married in December 1993.

Unlike many superstar producers, Lange has not given an interview in decades and is rarely photographed. He did not even appear in the official wedding photo Twain distributed to the media.

But his fingerprints were all over Twain's huge trilogy of albums, 1995's "The Woman in Me," 1997's "Come on Over," and 2002's "Up!" More arena rock than traditional country, the albums were packed with catchy hooks and lyrics celebrating female empowerment.

The couple avoided the spotlight by dividing their time between a chateau near Geneva and a luxury farmhouse in New Zealand.

Only 2 new shows on Fox network in the fall

NEW YORK - Fox is launching only two new series in the fall, traditionally its slow season, but the network plans flashy two-hour premieres of four shows during the same week as the Democratic National Convention.

The network's biggest priorities next season will be launching two new science fiction series by the creative forces behind "Lost" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

Despite some audience erosion from "American Idol," Fox will end the current television season as the nation's most popular network among all viewers, not just young ones. That's the first time Fox has achieved this in its 20-year history, and it breaks CBS' five-year winning streak.

Its edgy strategy hasn't changed, though.

"We're just looking for good, noisy shows," said Fox Entertainment President Kevin Reilly.

"Fringe," "Bones," "Prison Break" and "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader" will open the fall season the week of Aug. 25.

They should not conflict with major moments of the convention because political planners try to time them after 10 p.m. on the East Coast, when the shows will be over, said Peter Liguori, Fox entertainment chairman. Fox is avoiding any conflict on Thursday, when the party's nominee gives an acceptance speech.

Producer J.J. Abrams ("Lost") is behind "Fringe," a drama about an airplane flight whose passengers meet untimely ends. "Fringe" will be paired on the schedule with "House" on Tuesdays in the fall and "American Idol" in the spring.

A comedy, tentatively titled "Do Not Disturb" and set in a trendy Manhattan hotel, is the only other new fall show.

Fox executives said their series development was hurt by the writers strike, one factor in the small number of new fall shows. But the new season on Fox usually starts slowly and kicks in when "American Idol" and "24" join the schedule in January.

Some network rivals are being conservative in introducing shows this fall "by default," Reilly said. "We're doing it by strategy."

Joss Whedon ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer") is the creator of midseason entry "Dollhouse," about an underground group whose members have their personalities erased so they can be given others. Two animated and one alternative series will debut in midseason.

Fox is reintroducing viewers to "24," which wasn't shown this year because of the strike, with a two-hour prequel Nov. 23.

Fox executives introduced their schedule to advertisers a week after "Idol," TV's biggest show, had its smallest Tuesday audience in five years. Fox was satisfied with the show creatively but not with its performance, Liguori said.

"The network and producers really want to take a look at the show next year and see what we can do to inject it with new levels of energy and greater storytelling," he said. The Wednesday results show will be cut from an hour to 30 minutes.

And, yes, Paula Abdul will be back, he said.

The network canceled "Back to You," the sitcom with Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton. Reilly said the show didn't seem to be striking a chord and he wasn't confident of its future direction. The comedy "'Til Death" will be back but revamped to expand the cast, he said.

The two animated shows are Seth MacFarlane's "The Cleveland Show," about a man who marries his high school sweetheart, and "Sit Down, Shut Up," about staff members at a high school. The alternative series is "Secret Millionaire," which takes some rich folks and puts them undercover in poor neighborhoods.

No love for Mike Myers's Guru

Hindu groups in India are calling for Mike Myers's film The Love Guru to be banned in India because they say it "appears to be lampooning Hinduism."

The trailers for the comedy, in which Myers plays a guru sent to solve the love problems of a Toronto Maple Leafs player, have also set off alarm bells among U.S.-based Hindus.

U.S.-based Hindus who had viewed the trailer said they thought Myers's portrayal of a spiritual guru potentially offensive and religiously insensitive.

In India, the fear is that the film would "hurt the feelings of the worldwide spiritual and Hindu community," according to Hindu organization Janjagruti Samiti and Sanatan Society for Scientific Spirituality of Bombay.

Some Hindu groups have said they will make a request to India's Central Board of Film Certification and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to keep the film out of India.

However, the film certification board says it has not yet received a complaint about the film.

There has been little love for Guru in Britain, too. The British Film Institute has assured Hindu groups there that it will not screen the film.

That just keeps The Love Guru out of the institute, not out of Britain.

Myers, the Canadian-born comedian who created Wayne's World and Austin Powers, plays an American man raised in India by gurus and trying to break into the self-help business in the U.S.

Directed by Marco Schnabel, the film also stars Ben Kingsley, Jessica Alba and Justin Timberlake.

The comedy also appears to lampoon hockey players and Canadians.

It is scheduled for release June 20 in North America.

New Weezer Album Coming Early

The release date of Weezer's sixth album has been pushed up from June 24 to June 3. The album, which will be the band's third self-titled CD, is being released a few weeks early due to popular demand and the intense reaction to the first single, "Pork and Beans," according to a statement on the band's website. However, some speculate it's being released three weeks early because several songs from the album have been leaked online, according to published reports.

The standard and deluxe versions of "Weezer"--which is being referred to as "The Red Album" to differentiate it from the previous self-titled releases--can be pre-ordered at Apple's iTunes store. The deluxe version will initially be available in digital form only. The release date for the physical deluxe version has not been announced.

The video for "Pork and Beans" is expected to surface in the coming weeks.

'Speed' Director Surfs to 'Point Break' Sequel

Whoa. Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze's crime-surf classic "Point Break" is finally getting a sequel, with director Jan de Bont at the helm.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, original screenwriter W. Peter Iliff is returning to script the sequel, which will move the action to Singapore and locations in Southeast Asia.

The trade paper offers no hints on which characters, if any, will return.

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, the 1991 original starred Reeves as an FBI Agent -- the fabulously named Johnny Utah -- who goes undercover with a gang of adrenaline junkies who rob banks when they aren't surfing or jumping out of planes. Swayze has been trying for years to explain how his Bodhi character, last seen paddling out into the gnarliest waves ever, could be back for a sequel, though the trade paper does say that the movie will take place 20 years after Bodhi's disappearance.

After a long run as an acclaimed cinematographer, de Bont shot onto the directing A-list with the hits "Speed" and "Twister." His three follow-up films -- "Speed 2: Cruise Control," "The Haunting" and "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life" -- have been less successful and he hasn't directed a film since 2003.

Marisa Miller's model year just got 'Maxim' exposure

Marisa Miller, 29, might just be having the best year ever. She landed the coveted Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cover in February, she's going into her seventh year as a Victoria's Secret model, and now she's the first to debut at No. 1 on the Maxim Hot 100 List.

Models are "constantly competing for campaigns and magazine covers as the industry really changes and becomes celebrity-saturated," the California native says. "So to get that kind of notoriety now is really, really incredible."

Maxim editorial director James Kaminsky says 2008 is indeed the year of Miller. "She represents the return of the great American supermodel, and she's veering towards ubiquity," he says. "But in a really great way."

In addition to basking in the glow of her newly appointed hotness, Miller is developing a shoe line with Vans and supporting the Young Survival Coalition, which promotes breast cancer awareness among women in their 20s and 30s.

And although Miller, who's married to movie producer Griffin Guess, calls the past year "a dream come true," she's more than willing to share the spotlight.

She says there are plenty of women she'd pull into the Maxim top 10 with her, including fellow Victoria's Secret angel Heidi Klum and a slew of vintage supermodels.

"Cindy Crawford, Christie Brinkley, Stephanie Seymour; I really like the (classic) American supermodels," she says. But "how do you pick? There's so many gorgeous girls."

Jackson's 'Thriller' among cultural treasures

WASHINGTON - The best-selling pop album on planet Earth and a disc sent hurtling into deep space are among recordings the Library of Congress will preserve for their cultural significance.

Twenty-five selections were added to the National Recording Registry on Wednesday, part of the library's attempt to save America's aural history by archiving recordings deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant."

The inductees range from Michael Jackson's 1982 all-time-bestseller "Thriller" and jazz artist Herbie Hancock's 1973 fusion smash "Headhunters" to the 1977 record of Earth sounds that flew aboard the spacecraft Voyager in the event alien life forms encountered the craft. Other recordings added to the registry include works by Roy Orbison, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Kitty Wells and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.

A collection of Navajo songs, Harry Truman's 1948 Democratic National Convention speech, radio broadcasts from Ronald Reagan before he became president, and the original cast recording of "My Fair Lady" also made the cut, as did broadcasts of New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia reading comics to children during a 1945 newspaper delivery strike.

A recording of the first trans-Atlantic broadcast — an orchestral performance transmitted from London and relayed to the U.S. East Coast in 1925 — also was included because it represented a technological breakthrough in broadcasting.

The Library of Congress chooses 25 recordings each year to add to its registry and preserve. Nominations come from a Library of Congress preservation board and online suggestions from the public. The selections for 2007 bring the registry's total to 250.

Postage stamp puts Sinatra back in the spotlight

NEW YORK - Frank Sinatra competed against 50,000 others — and won.

That's how many annual proposals are made for new U.S. postage stamps. The late crooner's face appeared on one of them Tuesday, with Frank Sinatra Jr. on hand to honor his father's memory.

"When we have the U.S. Postal Service making the announcement that there are 50,000 suggestions per year, out of which 20 are selected — if that isn't the very embodiment of the American Dream, well, I don't know what is," Sinatra Jr. said at a ceremony in Manhattan.

"He was a fellow off the streets of Hoboken, N.J.," he said.

The 42-cent Sinatra stamp went on sale Tuesday in New York, Las Vegas and Hoboken, where Sinatra was born. New York and Las Vegas were among his favorite haunts.

His daughter Tina Sinatra joined Postal Service governor James Bilbray in a dedication ceremony Tuesday in Las Vegas.

The entertainer died 10 years ago this week.

James Garner hospitalized after minor stroke

LOS ANGELES - James Garner, who was hospitalized late last week after suffering a minor stroke, is doing well and should be going home shortly, the veteran television and film star's publicist said Tuesday.

The star of such TV shows as "Maverick" and "The Rockford Files" went to the hospital after becoming ill at home Friday, said his publicist, Jennifer Allen.

"He's still in the hospital but my understanding is he is doing well and will be going home soon. When, exactly, we have not been told yet," Allen told The Associated Press.

Garner, who turned 80 last month, rose to prominence in the 1950s as the star of "Maverick," playing a wry riverboat gambler who was quicker with a quip than a gun and, unlike his Western counterparts, was faster still to run from trouble than to face it. The show aired from 1957 to 1962 but Garner, who was nominated for an Emmy as Bret Maverick, left in 1960 to pursue a film career.

He has appeared in such films as "The Children's Hour," "Victor/Victoria," "The Great Escape" and was nominated for an Oscar in 1985 as the small-town pharmacist opposite Sally Field in "Murphy's Romance."

Garner returned to television full-time in the mid-1970s, playing Jim Rockford, a modern-day private detective who, like his "Maverick" character, also was not afraid to run instead of fight. He won an Emmy for the role in 1977.

Garner also reprised his Maverick role in the short-lived "Bret Maverick" series in the 1980s.

More recently, he played Katey Sagal's father in the sitcom "8 Simple Rules ... For Dating My Teenage Daughter." Garner joined the cast in 2003 after John Ritter, who played Sagal's husband, died during the show's second season.

Weinsteins roll with 'Fraggle Rock'

The Weinstein Co. is reviving Jim Henson series 'Fraggle Rock' as a live-action musical pic.

The Weinstein Co. will turn the Jim Henson series "Fraggle Rock" into a live-action musical feature.

Cory Edwards, who directed the animated "Hoodwinked!" for TWC, will helm the picture and write the screenplay. The Jim Henson Co. will produce and TWC will distribute.

Just like the series, the film will be populated by a mix of human characters and Fraggle Rock puppets. TWC co-chair Harvey Weinstein, who has been steering his company more aggressively into the family film arena, made the marriage with Lisa Henson, who runs JHC with her co-CEO brother, Brian Henson.

Ahmet Zappa will be exec producer with Brian Inerfeld.

Pic will take the core characters Gobo, Wembley, Mokey, Boober and Red outside of their home in Fraggle Rock, where they interact with humans, which they think are aliens. The show premiered on HBO in 1983, ran five seasons and was broadcast in more than 80 countries. It posted strong sales recently when the first three seasons were released on DVD.

The deal furthers the relationship between TWC and the "Hoodwinked!" creative team. Edwards is reteaming with "Hoodwinked!" co-writer Tony Leech on the animated alien adventure "Escape From Planet Earth," on which Leech is making his directing debut.

Edwards is separately developing a live-action feature adaptation of Cedar Fair's Halloween Haunt franchise, designed to be shot in 3-D by Kerner Optical and produced by Davis Entertainment, Dave Phillips and Tracey Edmonds. That pic is looking for a backer.

"One of our main priorities when we first launched the Weinstein Company was to feature a broad range of family-friendly franchises like 'Fraggle Rock,' " Weinstein said.

Country and pop stars get back together for songs, tours

Country and pop music's on-again, off-again romance is heating up.
Sammy Hagar is playing stadium dates with Kenny Chesney. Brooks & Dunn is co-headlining with ZZ Top. CMT is airing Tim McGraw's Nine Lives duet with Def Leppard. And Dierks Bentley is booked for alt-rock festival Lollapalooza.

In the past, acts from the Eagles to Aaron Neville occasionally have gotten country airplay. Now, the two genres seem closer on the country chart than they've been in years.

Jewel and Hootie & The Blowfish's Darius Rucker, the '90s pop favorites, have singles on the country chart. Blake Shelton recently recast Michael Bublé's 2005 hit Home as a country song, and Sugarland covered the Dream Academy's 1986 hit Life in a Northern Town on last month's CMT Music Awards. Garth Brooks cut Workin' for a Livin' with original singer Huey Lewis. Newcomers Rissi Palmer and David Nail have covered Jordin Sparks' No Air and Train's I'm About to Come Alive, respectively.

The influx of pop songs and acts doesn't surprise Gregg Swedberg, program director for country station KEEY-FM in Minneapolis. "People are smart about (their) audience," he says. "They're playing to a group that's older than top 40 and predominantly white, predominantly pop- and R&B-based with a rock sensibility."

Shelton found Home on his iPod after girlfriend Miranda Lambert uploaded it without telling him. "The more I listened, the more I thought, 'That's not just an adult-contemporary record, that's a country hit, too,' " Shelton says.

Some of country's acknowledgement of the download generation's diverse tastes can be traced to CMT Crossroads, which regularly features country and pop acts playing together. Chart-topping collaborations between Reba McEntire and Kelly Clarkson, and Bon Jovi and Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles, resulted from Crossroads.

"Crossroads is just the first televised manifestation of something that already existed," says CMT executive vice president Brian Philips.

The romance between country and pop could be nothing more than a summer fling — although Robert Plant was serious enough about touring with bluegrass chanteuse Alison Krauss in support of their critically acclaimed album Raising Sand that he shrugged off the possibility of a lucrative Led Zeppelin reunion.

Philips says some cultural differences that once divided country and pop performers may be disappearing.

"There's no artist under 30 — and probably under 40 — who was not raised in a diverse musical environment," he says. "It's the rare exception who comes through our doors and says, 'The only thing I've heard all my life is country music.' "

Shelton doesn't see that as a bad thing: "It's good for everybody that it's starting to mix up."

Von Trapp's "Sound of Music" villa to become hotel

SALZBURG, Austria (Reuters) - "The Sound of Music," one of Hollywood's greatest money-spinners, will scale new heights when the original von Trapp family villa near Salzburg opens as a hotel in July.

The 1965 film based on the true story of how aspiring nun Maria sang her way into the hearts of Baron von Trapp and his seven children has provided fans with a host of must-have items.

The Villa Trapp hotel will give visitors a chance to sleep in the family's former bedrooms or get married in their chapel.

And the gazebo where Liesl, eldest of the von Trapp daughters in the film, and her boyfriend Rolf meet secretly and perform "Sixteen going on 17" will also be available as a self-assembly construction set.

"The hotel really is a milestone for the commercialization of The Sound Of Music for Salzburg," said Leo Bauernberger from the Salzburg provincial tourism board. "The Sound of Music is well and truly a stroke of luck for this city."

The film, which starred Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer and was based on a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, has inspired sing-along shows worldwide, a drinking game, a self-healing CD and a Maria Barbie doll.

U.S. ticket tracking site www.boxofficemojo.com ranks "The Sound of Music" as the third most successful movie of all time on the domestic market, taking inflation into account, topped only by "Gone With the Wind" and "Star Wars."

"It is hard to imagine that anyone hasn't seen it and it is still passed down the generations," Graham Hales, brand specialist at Interbrand, told Reuters. "It is a property."

SOUND OF MUSIC RINGS TILLS IN SALZBURG

The von Trapp family lived in the villa outside Salzburg from 1923 to 1938 before fleeing the Nazi takeover of Austria. Nazi security chief Heinrich Himmler used the villa as a home close to the Austrian Alps until 1945.

A missionary order bought the residence after World War Two and has agreed to relinquish it for use as a hotel. Entrepreneurs plan to make no alterations to the building other than essentials such as painting and rewiring.

In Salzburg, visitors from North America, Asia and Britain, where the film has been very popular, generate some 700,000 overnight stays every year, according to tourism officials.

For 40 percent of them, the film is the sole reason for their visit. Seeing the film's original locations is for many, like Lana Wright from New Zealand, a dream came true.

"It was almost a feeling like 'you've come home'," said Wright, 53, with watery eyes, stepping off a tour bus.

"Finally I have arrived, arrived somewhere where I was supposed to be, somewhere that I was supposed to see."

Hales said The Sound of Music, by featuring goodies and baddies, heroes who stand up to do the right thing and a heartening depiction of strong family bonds, will be appealing to generations to come.

"The whole story is simply so beautiful -- here in Salzburg, with the scenery, the people, the whole story line -- it's just a classic," said Laura Ude from the United States.

ABC's fall schedule features only 2 new shows

NEW YORK - ABC will add only one new scripted series in the fall, plus a new game show, in a schedule that network executives admit was severely affected by the 100-day writers strike that concluded in February.

The new David E. Kelley-produced drama, "Life on Mars," is about a police detective transported back to 1973. ABC gave it a plum Thursday time slot following "Grey's Anatomy."

The second new series, "Opportunity Knocks," is a game where producers show up at a home with a truckload of prizes and quiz family members on what they know about each other.

ABC is also picking up the NBC comedy "Scrubs" for midseason. ABC Entertainment President Stephen McPherson, who has feuded with his NBC counterpart Ben Silverman, noted Tuesday that the comedy had 17 different time slots at NBC and received little promotion.

Like its rivals, ABC has suffered a decline in ratings this season. Its executives were encouraged, however, that ABC won among the coveted 18-to-49-year-old demographic for seven of 10 weeks last fall before the strike and Fox's "American Idol" buried it.

All of the major broadcast networks are presenting their schedules to advertisers this week except for NBC, which announced its plans last month.

McPherson has been bold in the past in bringing forward new shows: ABC had eight last fall. But the strike impaired development. ABC has 17 series in development for midseason or beyond, but McPherson said he wasn't comfortable committing to new series unless pilots had been filmed.

"If you needed a ton of development for the fall schedule, the strike would have been a really bad bet," he said. "You'd have to rush it or put stuff on before you knew what it was."

The result is another chance for series that in normal years may not have gotten one, such as "Eli Stone," "Pushing Daisies" or "Dirty Sexy Money." Some longer-running shows considered on the bubble, "Boston Legal" and "According to Jim," were kept in production. "Boston Legal" will move to Mondays in the fall.

"Lost" will be back in midseason next year.

It was a good day for Ashton Kutcher, too. His production company is behind "Opportunity Knocks" and an untitled beauty pageant picked up for midseason. ABC also gave a midseason go-ahead to a Mike Judge animated series, "The Goode Family," about people obsessed with doing the right thing.

"Notes From the Underbelly," "Men in Trees," "October Road" and "Women's Murder Club" were left off ABC's schedule.

The newsmagazine `20/20" will return, and ABC has also asked its news division to make more of the "Primetime" shows where people are tested by being put in different social situations.

Broadcast networks will need to make a special effort this fall to counter lingering effects of the strike, he said. ABC plans to devote more promotional time than it normally does to returning shows instead of new series, he said.

"We certainly saw the affect of the strike," McPherson said. "People found other things to do."

'Speed Racer' comes in 3rd as 'Iron Man' maintains grip

LOS ANGELES - Warner Bros.' "Speed Racer" downshifted to third place in its debut weekend with $18.6 million in box-office receipts while Marvel Studios' "Iron Man" kept a lock on first with $51.2 million in ticket sales.

The Wachowski brothers' anime-inspired racing movie came in about $1.6 million short of studio estimates Sunday, finishing way behind expectations. The studio, owned by Time Warner Inc., said the movie would have a tough time covering its $120 million budget.

"What Happens in Vegas," 20th Century Fox's comedy starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, meanwhile pulled down $20.2 million for second, slightly above estimates made early Sunday.

"Iron Man," which stars Robert Downey Jr. in the title role, saw revenue slip a respectable 48 percent from its opening weekend, bringing its domestic sales to a total of $177.8 million. The film is being distributed by Paramount Pictures.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Media By Numbers LLC:

1. "Iron Man," Paramount, $51,190,629, 4,111 locations, $12,452 average, $177,825,024, two weeks.

2. "What Happens in Vegas," Fox, $20,172,474, 3,215 locations, $6,274 average, $20,172,474, one week.

3. "Speed Racer," Warner Bros., $18,561,337, 3,606 locations, $5,147 average, $18,561,337, one week.

4. "Made of Honor," Sony, $8,116,323, 2,734 locations, $2,969 average, $26,791,494, two weeks.

5. "Baby Mama," Universal, $6,225,790, 2,627 locations, $2,370 average, $40,836,370, three weeks.

6. "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," Universal, $3,837,240, 2,376 locations, $1,615 average, $50,781,745, four weeks.

7. "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay," Warner Bros., $3,106,424, 2,264 locations, $1,372 average, $30,667,308, three weeks.

8. "The Forbidden Kingdom," Lionsgate, $2,169,323, 1,724 locations, $1,258 average, $48,530,104, four weeks.

9. "Nim's Island," Fox, $1,463,622, 1,601 locations, $914 average, $44,395,857, six weeks.

10. "Prom Night," Sony Screen Gems, $1,012,986, 1,465 locations, $691 average, $42,785,107, five weeks.

11. "Redbelt," Sony Pictures Classics, $1,012,435, 1,379 locations, $734 average, $1,109,674, two weeks.

12. "21," Sony, $851,385, 978 locations, $871 average, $80,434,035, seven weeks.

13. "The Visitor," Overture Films, $729,212, 217 locations, $3,360 average, $2,475,492, five weeks.

14. "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!," Fox, $605,347, 770 locations, $786, $150,699,120, nine weeks.

15. "88 Minutes," Sony, $534,104, 625 locations, $855 average, $16,460,014, four weeks.

16. "Drillbit Taylor," Paramount, $508,095, 267 locations, $1,903 average, $31,760,807, eight weeks.

17. "Young At Heart," Fox Searchlight, $388,928, 145 locations, $2,682 average, $1,444,646, five weeks.

18. "10,000 B.C.," Warner Bros., $347,407, 409 locations, $849 average, $94,042,448, 10 weeks.

19. "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," Rocky Mountain Pictures, $328,836, 402 locations, $818 average, $7,235,324, four weeks.

20. "Street Kings," Fox Searchlight, $240,553, 297 locations, $810 average, $25,649,703, five weeks.

New CD Releases, May 13: Death Cab for Cutie, Duffy, Jason Mraz

Death Cab for Cutie "Narrow Stairs"

The Pacific Northwest pop-rock quartet returns with a follow-up to 2005's Grammy-nominated "Plans." The first single from "Narrow Stairs," the band's second major-label release, is "I Will Possess Your Heart." The album was produced by Death Cab's guitarist, Chris Walla.

Having appeared last month at Southern California's Coachella Valley music festival, Death Cab is now on the road in support of "Narrow Stairs." The trek includes stops at Tennessee's Bonnaroo (June 15) and British Columbia's Pemberton Festival (July 27).

* * *
Duffy "Rockferry"

The Welsh singer/songwriter is already a star in the U.K., where her debut CD, "Rockferry," was released earlier this year. Now, she's ready to try her luck on this side of the Atlantic as "Rockferry" is officially released in the U.S.

Duffy, whose retro-soul sound invites comparisons to Amy Winehouse, has gotten a head start on familiarizing American audiences with her music. She has already performed at two media magnets--: Coachella and South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. She's also scheduled to appear at the this August's Virgin Mobile Festival in Baltimoree in August.

* * *
Jason Mraz "We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things"

The pop-rock star is set to release his third studio album, which follows 2005's "Mr. A-Z." "We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things"The new album was recorded primarily in San Diego and London and features collaborations with singer/songwriters Colbie Caillat (on the track "Lucky") and James Morrison (on "Details In Fabric"). The first single from the album is "I'm Yours."

* * *
Frank Sinatra "Nothing But the Best"

Fans of Ol' Blue Eyes--a group demographic that includes basically everyone--will certainly appreciate this collection of remastered hits. The set features Sinatra crooning through 22 classic tunes, including "Strangers in the Night," "Luck Be a Lady" and "Come Fly with Me."

* * *
Old 97's "Blame It On Gravity"

The Texas troupe, led by vocalist Rhett Miller, returns with its seventh studio album. "Blame It On Gravity" is the alt-country-rock band's first new studio offering since 2004's acclaimed "Drag It Up." During the hiatus from the studio, the Old 97's did release a concert offering (2005's "Alive and Wired") and a best-of set (2006's "Hit by a Train: The Best of the Old 97's).

More new releases:
Regina Belle, "Love Forever Shines" (Pendulum)
The Black Angels, "Directions to See a Ghost" (Light in the Attic)
T Bone Burnett, "Tooth of Crime" (Nonesuch)
Kerry Butler, "Faith, Trust and Pixie Dust" (P.S.)
Dokken, "Lightning Strikes Again" (Atco)
Christine Ebersole, "Sunday in New York" (Ghostlight)
Filter, "Anthems for the Damned" (Pulse)
Bill Frisell, "History, Mystery" (Nonesuch)
Local H, "12 Angry Months" (Shout)
Pendulum, "In Silico" (Atlantic)
Arsenio Rodriquez, "El Alma de Cuba" (Tumbao)
Siggi Schwarz, "In the Midst of Beauty" (Inakustik)
Keith Sweat, "Just Me" (Rhino)
10 Years, "Division"

Soundtracks and scores:
"The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" (Disney)

Metallica Taking Fans Inside New Album Sessions

As the September release of its first album in five years draws near, Metallica has launched the Web site "Mission: Metallica" to offer fans a wealth of exclusive content and teasers of new songs.

A preview clip shows the band recording and clowning around in the studio. Fans who sign up will be eligible to "win backstage passes to every show this summer," among other special offers.

"Mission: Metallica" also has a "platinum" level, entitling fans to a copy of the new album delivered on street date, weekly "fly on the wall" video clips, contests to travel to shows and/or Metallica's San Francisco compound, live show downloads, ringtones and more.

It is unclear what, if anything, the services will cost.

Metallica will be on the road this summer in advance of the as-yet-untitled album, beginning Wednesday (May 14) with a show at Los Angeles' intimate Wiltern Theatre. A European run begins May 28 in Chorzow, Poland.

Neil Young gets new honor -- his own spider

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Iconic singer and songwriter Neil Young has had an honor bestowed upon him that is not received by many musicians -- his own spider.

An East Carolina University biologist, Jason Bond, discovered a new species of trapdoor spider and opted to call the arachnid after his favorite musician, Canadian Neil Young, naming it Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi.

"There are rather strict rules about how you name new species," Bond said in a statement.

"As long as these rules are followed you can give a new species just about any name you please. With regards to Neil Young, I really enjoy his music and have had a great appreciation of him as an activist for peace and justice."

Young, 62, is a veteran rock musician who rose to fame in the 1960s with the band Buffalo Springfield and later became a member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, whose 1970 release "Deja Vu" has become a classic rock album.

The singer/songwriter, whose solo work ranges from older albums such as "Harvest" to newer CDs like "Living with War," has long been an activist for social and anti-war causes.

Bond discovered the new spider species in Jefferson County, Alabama, in 2007. He said spiders in the trapdoor genus, who tend to live in burrows and build trap doors to seal off their living quarters, are distinguished from one species to the next on the basis of differences in genitalia.

He confirmed through the spider's DNA that the Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi is an identifiable, separate species of spider within the trapdoor genus.

Young is not the first musician to have a creature named after him. A species of beetle that looks as if it is wearing a tuxedo -- the whirligig beetle, or Orectochilus orbisonorum -- was named earlier this year after the late rock 'n' roll legend Roy Orbison and his widow Barbara.

Jennie Garth Moves Back to 'Beverly Hills, 90210'

Kelly Taylor is back.

Jennie Garth, who was rumored to return to her old stomping grounds at West Beverly High, will indeed join the cast of The CW's spinoff of "Beverly Hills, 90210," reports People.

Garth, 36, will make special guest appearances as a guidance counselor at her alma mater. She is the first original cast member to hitch herself to the project and the second person to be cast as part of the faculty after Ryan Eggold, who will play an English lit teacher.

The show will center on the experiences of the Mills family when they move to Beverly Hills because of the latest drunken exploits of grandmother Tabitha Mills (Jessica Walter), a has-been Hollywood starlet. Lori Loughlin will play her daughter-in-law Celia, while granddaughter Annie (Shenae Grimes) and adopted grandson Dixon (Tristan Wilds) maneuver through the hallways of West Beverly High.

Also previously cast are Jessica Stroup, AnnaLynne McCord and Dustin Milligan.

Garth recently exited the CBS pilot "My Best Friend's Girl," sparking rumors that she was freeing herself up for appearances on the as-yet untitled "90210" project. Although she made a name for herself on the original show, she also enjoyed a run on "What I Like About You" and performed honorably on "Dancing With the Stars."

Mellencamp's 'Life' Goes Hi-Fi With Hear Music

John Mellencamp's "Life, Death, Love and Freedom," produced by T-Bone Burnett and due July 15 via Hear Music, will be released in a new high-definition audio format dubbed CODE.

CODE technology, developed by Burnett and a team of engineers, creates high-definition audio files that are virtually indistinguishable from the original masters.

To address possible compatibility issues, "Life" will be packaged as a two-disc set, with the standard edition of the album on CD and the CODE version of the album on DVD. The set will be priced as if it were a single-disc package.

Burnett recently told Billboard of his experience working with Mellencamp, "I didn't offer much direction, really, but he was certainly open. He encouraged me to play guitar a lot on the record, which I enjoyed."

"Life" will be available at Starbucks locations in the U.S. and Canada as well as at traditional retail outlets.

As previously reported, Mellencamp will embark on a month-long summer tour in support of "Life" starting July 8 at the Mann Music Center in Philadelphia with Lucinda Williams providing support on most dates.

Here is the track list to "Life, Death, Love and Freedom":

1. "Longest Days"
2. "My Sweet Love"
3. "If I Die Sudden"
4. "Troubled Land"
5. "Young Without Lovers"
6. "John Cockers"
7. "Don't Need This Body"
8. "A Ride Back Home"
9. "Without A Shot"
10. "Jena"
11. "Mean"
12. "County Fair"
13. "For The Children"
14. "A Brand New Song"

'Speed Racer' gets passed in its debut

LOS ANGELES - "Speed Racer" was lapped in its opening weekend at the box office as "Iron Man" continued to fire its jets with $50.5 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The anime-inspired race movie edged into the No. 2 spot with $20.2 million, slightly ahead of the 20th Century Fox comedy "What Happens in Vegas," which debuted at $20 million.

"Our tracking was stalled toward the end," said Dan Fellman, president of Warner Bros. theatrical distribution, about market surveys before the "Speed Racer" opening.

Fellman added "Speed Racer" would have difficulty recouping its $120 million budget.

"Unfortunately it didn't perform to our expectations," he said.

"Speed Racer" was panned by many film critics and was made by the Wachowski brothers, best known for the "Matrix" franchise.

"What Happens in Vegas," a romantic comedy that cost $35 million and stars Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, shot the gap between the action flicks, said Chris Aronson, senior vice president at 20th Century Fox.

"We were sandwiched between the comic book movie of 'Iron Man' and 'Speed Racer,'" Aronson said. "We come along with a character-driven movie in what is now considered summer and it's just a great result."

Revenue for Marvel Studios' "Iron Man" slipped just 49 percent in its second week in theaters, a respectable showing considering its massive opening, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of tracking firm Media By Numbers LLC.

"'Iron Man' is basically pulling everybody's audience. It's really dominating the marketplace," he said.

Five of the top 10 grossing movies were comedies, including Sony Pictures' Patrick Dempsey-led film, "Made of Honor," which took in $7.6 million in its second week, for fourth place.

The weekend's total domestic box office gross hit $128 million, up 21 percent from last year. But year-to-date revenue was still down 2.5 percent at $2.93 billion, while attendance was off 5.3 percent.

Over the next few weeks, several big movies will take a shot at knocking "Iron Man" off its perch, starting with "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian," opening May 16, and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" on May 22.

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. "Iron Man," $50.5 million.
2. "Speed Racer," $20.2 million.
3. "What Happens in Vegas," $20 million.
4. "Made of Honor," $7.6 million.
5. "Baby Mama," $5.8 million.
6. "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," $3.8 million.
7. "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay," $3.2 million.
8. "The Forbidden Kingdom," $1.9 million.
9. "Nim's Island," $1.3 million.
10. "Redbelt," $1.1 million.

Person close to talks: NBC installing Fallon on 'Late Night'

NEW YORK - Jimmy Fallon will officially be given the keys to NBC's "Late Night" franchise following Conan O'Brien's exit.

A person close to the negotiations who spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement hadn't been made confirmed the widely rumored change Sunday and said a news conference was planned for Monday.

All that's left is an official date for NBC's transition: O'Brien moving out West to take over for Jay Leno on the "Tonight" show and Fallon following in the next time slot.

Fallon was a "Saturday Night Live" cast member before leaving for a movie career in 2004. He has had mixed success, with his most notable role as a childlike Boston Red Sox fan and Drew Barrymore's paramour in "Fever Pitch."

He signed a deal with NBC in 2007 that was widely seen as a way to keep him in the fold until the time came for Monday's announcement.

It would be hard for him to have a rockier transition than O'Brien had when he took over from David Letterman in the mid-1990s. O'Brien was a writer with a quick sense of humor but a mystery to the television audience, and he was savaged in early reviews. NBC nearly fired him but persevered, and O'Brien grew into the role.

It was in large part to keep O'Brien happy that NBC announced four years ago that he would replace Leno next year.

While Leno went along with the plan, there are reports that the workaholic comic is not eager to leave. NBC Universal is trying to find a job that would satisfy him and avoid having Leno move to ABC or Fox to compete directly against O'Brien.

NBC could decide to back out of the plan and keep Leno on "Tonight," but O'Brien's contract calls for a penalty fee reportedly close to $40 million.

It all amounts to a roll of the dice in late-night, where NBC has stayed on top despite the network's prime-time problems.

NBC's announcement opens network television's "upfront" week, when fall schedules are set and presented to advertisers. NBC took the unusual step of announcing its schedule a month ago, and it has invited advertisers for a Monday sales presentation emphasizing all of NBC Universal's properties.

The Couch Potato Report - May 10th, 2008

This week The Couch Potato Report peels two films that just were not made for me, and two others that were.

I have said this before, and I am sure that I will say it again from time to time - not every film made can be enjoyed by everyone.

Specifically, not every film that is made is one that I will, or can like.

Now, there is a difference between movies that are bad, and movies that have some merit, but I - and maybe you - just aren't the audience for.

Hopefully, we all find films that we love, be they comedy, action, adventure, romance, horror, or animated, be we woman, man, boy or girl.

This week, I have two movies that I am sure somebody will love, but that body is not me.

Not at all!!

I'll start with this week's Hot Potato, the Canadian made film HOW SHE MOVE - about a high school student who is forced to leave her private school to return to her old, crime-filled neighborhood where she re-kindles an unlikely passion for the competitive world of step dancing.

Nope, not for me at all!!

HOW SHE MOVE is well made, I didn't necessarily have a problem with the writing or the choreography, and the young cast were all competent enough actors...but whether it is HOW SHE MOVE, STEP UP, YOU GOT SERVED, or any of the many other films in recent years that take a young man or woman who is heading toward the wrong side of the tracks, and gives them a second chance in life simply because they learn how to dance...these films do nothing for me.

They don't invlove me, they don't move me, and they don't entertain me...but they might for you...so if they do, then HOW SHE MOVE might satisfy your needs, otherwise, step away from it...you've been served!!

Alright, I lumped HOW SHE MOVE together with the rest of that type of dance films to illustrate that they are not for me, but when it comes to teh genre that this week's next film resides, I admit it, I do love romance films - be they romantic comedies or romance dramas.

But even within that genre, there will be some occasions when I do not love a movie or two, and that is the case with what I think is a failed romance drama - the name of this one is P.S. I LOVE YOU.

In this movie, Hilary Swank from MILLION DOLLAR BABY and BOYS DON"T CRY is a woman who is madly in love with her husband, and then he dies from a brain tumour.

However, in the midst of her grief, on her 30th birthday, she gets a taped recording from him.

After that message ends, and the letters start to come in, she starts to live and laugh, and maybe even love again, even though she has a broken heart.

Now, the issue that I had with this film was that I wasn't able to get past that fact that while the husband was dying that he would use all of his remaining time to arrange and organize and plan not just the delivery of the letters, but the HUGE events that surrounds each one.

Now I am a huge fan of Hilary Swank and think she is one of this planet's most beautiful women, and there are moments in PS I LOVE YOU that are very, very touching, and at times it did engage me.

But as a whole, this two-hour and six minute film did nothing for me. The romance and heartbreak seemed real enough, and the actors including Gerard Butler, Kathy Bates, Harry Connick Jr., Gina Gershon and Lisa Kudrow were - for the most part - all very good, but as much as I wanted to like the movie and these characters, I just didn't care for it...or them.

And that is why I say that it just wasn't a movie for me.

Is it a movie for you? Perhaps it is, but not every film made can be enjoyed by everyone, so if this seems like a film that you would like, then good luck!

So I don't recommend either PS I LOVE YOU or HOW SHE MOVE, but I am a huge fan of this week's next two releases, both films from the ninties, both now available on DVD in new Deluxe Editions.

And I will start with YOU'VE GOT MAIL..., now this is a romance film that I love!

Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan star as two rivals in business who hate each other when it comes to the work that they do, but fall in love anonymously over the internet.

Younger folks may watch this film and wonder why they are emailing each other and not just having an online chat using instant messaging or iChat, but since those options weren't available to the majority of us when this film came out ten years ago, they are using what they had.

And yes, it has been ten years since YOU'VE GOT MAIL came out.

This new DELUXE EDITION of the film features several great retrospective looks back at the movie, but most of all it contains the film and the chemistry that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan share on screen.

Yup, ten years later, I still love this one!!

And twelve years later, I still really love TWISTER!!

This still great film is about people who chase tornados, and it features some great special effects of storms and the things that get obliterated by them.

The new TWO DISC SPECIAL EDITION of TWISTER features a wealth of features about the science of real tornados, and several that look back at the movie, and some of it's most memorable moments, including the "cow scene" where a cow goes flying past the stars, as it is caught in a funnel cloud.

That is good stuff!!

The TWO DISC SPECIAL EDITION of the still great action film TWISTER, the DELUXE EDITION of the filled with chemistry YOU'VE GOT MAIL, the failed romance drama PS I LOVE YOU that was made for people other than me, and the Canadian made film HOW SHE MOVE - that was also NOT made for me are all available now on DVD.


Coming up on the next Couch Potato Report

The great Canadian film DANCE ME OUTSIDE debuts on DVD; and so does SEASON THREE of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE!

Also next week, Matthew Perry plays a chronically depressed screenwriter in NUMB.

Six characters embody a different aspect of Bob Dylan's life and work in I'M NOT THERE.

And THE GREAT DEBATERS is the second film from DIRECTOR Denzel Washington.

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!

Karen Allen thrilled over Indy return

LOS ANGELES–Nothing ever seems to change in the stormy love-hate relationship between Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood.

The characters created by Harrison Ford and Karen Allen in 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark are back at it with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, due out May 22.

"As the film begins, they haven't seen each other for a long time, and suddenly, they're thrust back together," Allen told The Associated Press this week. "They kind of pick up from where they left off. A few bumpy roads have passed between them since then that they have to work out with each other."

Allen has always been the fan favourite among the women Indy, forever fighting and making up with Indy in the first three films, with viewers long hoping for the two to reunite.

Director Steven Spielberg's future wife, Kate Capshaw, became the archeologist's love interest in the second movie, 1984's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Allen's Marion could not have appeared in that one, since Temple of Doom took place earlier than Raiders, which marked the first time she had seen Indy in a decade.

The next movie, 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, took place after Raiders, and Allen joked that "I guess I could have been in that one, but they decided to go with Sean Connery," who played Indy's estranged dad.

Alison Doody provided Indy's romantic entanglement in Last Crusade.

Allen was aware that Ford, Spielberg and producer George Lucas had been wrangling for ages over a fourth Indiana Jones movie. But she did not know anything for sure until Spielberg called her early last year.

"There had been a rumour for many, many years that they were trying to find a script everybody was going to be happy with," Allen said. "I would get little bits of information from time to time, usually rumour-mill kind of stuff, but I hadn't heard anything for a long time. I had no idea when they finally got a script that my character was back."

Though Allen was more interested in stage work and serious films, Marion offered a rare chance to play a strong, full-blooded woman in a big Hollywood action flick.

Marion's first moments on screen said it all as she chugged through a drinking contest and gave Indy a greeting he would not soon forget.

"She was a very wonderfully written character," Allen said. ``How can you go wrong when you meet a woman in a bar in Nepal and she's drinking men under the table, yelling at large men in Nepalese and ordering them out of the bar, and when she first sets eyes on Indiana Jones, she socks him in the jaw? It's a great introduction to the character, and it's hard to imagine she's not going to win a lot of fans."

And what about the speculation that Indy's new young sidekick, played by Shia LaBeouf, is the love child of Indy and Marion?

"You'll have to wait and see," Allen said.

Coldplay launches world tour in North America

After next month's free show in New York City, British alt-rockers Coldplay will dive into a full North American outing to support their forthcoming album, "Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends."

The first leg of the band's world tour officially kicks off July 2 in Washington, DC, and currently encompasses nearly 30 dates across the US and Canada through November. In the midst of the trek, Coldplay will jet to Japan Aug. 9-10 for the Summer Sonic Festival. North American shows are listed below and those overseas can be found at the group's website.

Last month, Coldplay announced it would play a free show at New York City's Madison Square Garden June 23 to preview "Viva la Vida." Hopeful concert-goers can sign up at the band's website to win tickets, and one lucky fan will also score airfare from their home town and hotel accommodations. Coldplay has also booked a similar free concert June 16 at London's Brixton Academy.

"Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends" is slated to hit North American record outlets June 17. Fans who pre-order the set from Apple's iTunes Music Store will be able to download the title track immediately, and will get two free bonus tracks upon release.

The album's lead single, "Violet Hill," recently made its radio debut and is holding steady in the Top 20 on Billboard's Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart. The tune is streaming at Coldplay's MySpace page.

"Viva la Vida," produced by Brian Eno and Markus Dravs, follows Coldplay's 2005 Grammy-nominated set, "X&Y," which entered The Billboard 200 at No. 1. That album has since sold more than 10 million copies on the strength of modern-rock/pop hits including "Talk," "Fix You" and "Speed of Sound."

June 2008
23 - New York, NY - Madison Square Garden (free show)
29 - Philadelphia, PA - Wachovia Center

July 2008
2 - Washington, DC - Verizon Center
3 - Hartford, CT - XL Center
5 - Auburn Hills, MI - Palace of Auburn Hills
6 - Cleveland, OH - Quicken Loans Arena
8 - St. Paul, MN - Xcel Energy Center
9 - Kansas City, MO - Spring Center
10 - Oklahoma City, OK - Ford Center
12 - Phoenix, AZ - Jobing.com Arena
19 - Las Vegas, NV - MGM Grand Garden Arena
21 - Sacramento, CA - ARCO Arena
24 - San Jose, CA - HP Pavilion
27 - Pemberton, British Columbia - Pemberton Festival
29 - Edmonton, Alberta - Rexall Place
30 - Calgary, Alberta - Pengrowth Saddledome

August 2008
1 - Winnipeg, Manitoba - MTS Centre
3 - Omaha, NE - Qwest Center
4 - Chicago, IL - United Center

October 2008
20 - Montreal, Quebec - Bell Centre
21 - Ottawa, Ontario - Scotiabank Place
26 - East Rutherford, NJ - IZOD Center
29-30 - Toronto, Ontario - Air Canada Centre

November 2008
3 - Boston, MA - TD Banknorth Garden
11 - Atlanta, GA - Philips Arena
18 - Houston, TX - Toyota Center
19 - Dallas, TX - American Airlines Center
21 - Denver, CO - Pepsi Center
22 - Salt Lake City, UT - Energy Solutions Arena

Behind the times: Wii to get Rock Band DLC on discs

A lack of storage "can't stop the [downloadable] rock" from hitting Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 2 versions of Rock Band, says MTV Games.

In an effort to bypass the lack of storage space found on both Wii and PS2 for downloading additional game content, MTV Games on Monday announced the "Rock Band Track Pack Volume 1," available July 15 for $29.99 smackers.

The retail disc bundles 20 songs previously made available as $1.99 single downloads to both PS3 and Xbox 360 owners, which you probably already know, are privy to ample hard drive space. Track Pack Vol. 1 includes:

30 Seconds to Mars The Kill
All American Rejects Move Along
Blink - 182 All the Small Things
Boston More Than a Feeling
David Bowie Moonage Daydream
Faith No More We Care A Lot
Grateful Dead Truckin'
The Hives Die, All Right!
KISS Calling Dr. Love
Lynyrd Skynyrd Gimme' Three Steps
Nine Inch Nails March of the Pigs
Oasis Live Forever
Paramore Crushcrushcrush
The Police Synchronicity II
Queens of the Stone Age Little Sister
Ramones Teenage Lobotomy
Smashing Pumpkins Siva
Stone Temple Pilots Interstate Love Song
Weezer Buddy Holly
Wolfmother Joker & the Thief

Rock Band, already available for Xbox 360, PS3, and PS2, will be available for Wii on June 22. The upcoming version is no frills, however, lacking support of both downloadable songs and online multiplayer, the latter of which is supported in impressive form on Guitar Hero III for Wii.

ABC Makes Up for Lost 'Lost'

ABC is making official what the producers of "Lost" have been saying for some time: Fans of the show won't be shortchanged any episodes.

The show will film 17 episodes for each of its final two seasons, instead of the 16 initially planned when ABC and the show's creative team hammered out a three-seasons-and-that's-it deal last year.

The extra shows in 2009 and 2010 will make up for the two episodes lost to the writers' strike this season, meaning the total number of episodes (48) isn't changing.

Executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have been saying as much for a while. In a conference call with reporters last month, Lindelof said they expected to deliver the two shows they couldn't this year in the future.

"I think it means there will be 34 left," he said. "We did 14 this year because of the strike, but we promised 16, which means we owe two more hours."

"We're not actually shortening the total number of episodes," Cuse added. "We're just deferring them into seasons five and six."

"Lost" has three episodes left this season, all of which Lindelof and Cuse consider part of the season finale. The first part airs Thursday, May 15, and the conclusion airs as a two-hour show on May 29. The show is taking May 22 off to make room for a two-hour "Grey's Anatomy" finale.

Dave Grohl writes Metallica letter about new album

Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl has written an open letter to Metallica, urging them not to release new material until it is "kick-ass".

In the letter Grohl inquires as to whether the band have completed drum parts for their new material – jokingly hinting that he has his eye on a part in the band.

The letter, posted on Blabbermouth, reads:

"Hey, it's Dave! Remember me? Yeah, I'm the guy that's been listening to your band faithfully since 1983. I bought your first album 'Kill 'Em All' from a mail order catalogue called Under The Rainbow, I think. Actually I can't remember. It was 1983 for Christsakes! But that album changed my life and I've been listening to your albums ever since (even 'St Anger'!).

"I can't wait to hear the new shit, and no matter what you guys do I'll always be first one at the shop waiting to hear it. I'm sure you'll come out and blow everybody's fuckin' minds, because you're fuckin' METALLICA!

"Good luck. And don't release it until it's kick-ass.

"Yours, Dave Grohl.

"P.S. Are you finished recording the drums yet?"

The record, the follow-up to 2003's 'St Anger', is due out in the autumn.

Frank Zappa concert headed for CD release

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Frank Zappa fans can soon enjoy a previously unreleased 1972 concert recording, the latest material from the deceased rock star's archives to be unveiled.

"Wazoo," a two-disc set documenting Zappa's September 24, 1972, show at the Boston Music Hall, will be released May 27 via Vaulternative Records, a label run by the Zappa Family Trust.

"Wazoo" is the third concert release from the trust, which is headed by Zappa's widow, Gail. Zappa died of prostate cancer in 1993.

The show marks the final performance by Zappa's 20-piece Grand Wazoo/Hot Rats/Mothers of Invention band. The set includes liner notes by Wazoo member Malcolm McNab and Gail Zappa, as well as photos from the era. It also marks the 35th anniversary of Zappa's studio album "The Grand Wazoo." The album will be available at Zappa.com.

How Iron Man was trounced by a scruffy car thief

LOS ANGELES - Niko Bellic is richer than Tony Stark.

While vying for similar audiences at the same time, "Grand Theft Auto IV" bested "Iron Man" by about $300 million in their respective first weeks on the small and big screens. The highly anticipated video game about immigrant gangster Bellic drove away with over $500 million, while the movie about Marvel billionaire superhero Stark blasted off with over $200 million worldwide.

Each figure is a history-maker in its own right: The supercharged "GTA IV" launch topped last year's blockbuster "Halo 3" release, making it the most lucrative debut video games — and, by all accounts, entertainment in general. Meanwhile, "Iron Man" can claim the second-best non-sequel movie opening ever as a consolation prize.

Software publisher Take-Two Interactive bandied the behemoth sales figures on Wednesday, days after "Iron Man" vaunted an unexpectedly huge opening weekend box office. The eye-popping digits left many wondering how such a blockbuster could be so soundly trounced by a controverisal video game.

The simple answer: "GTA IV" costs more to buy.

"'GTA IV"s first-week performance represents the largest launch in the history of interactive entertainment, and we believe these retail sales levels surpass any movie or music launch to date," Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick said in an official statement on Wednesday.

Such comparisons aren't entirely fair. Bellic and Stark, for example, play by different rules. Video games are sold online and in stores, a distribution model more like CDs and DVDs than newly released films. However, such similarities end there, because DVDs don't usually involve completely original fare. And CDs typically only contain, well, music.

The reach is vastly different, too: "Iron Man" was released on over 7,000 movie screens while "GTA IV" was available for about 24 million Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles at launch, according to Wedbush Morgan video game analyst Michael Pachter. But to achieve its $100 million weekend milestone, "Iron Man" had to sell more than twice the number of tickets as "GTA IV" units were moved — about six million — in the first week.

Janco Parters video game analyst Mike Hickey originally suspected "GTA IV" could dampen the success of "Iron Man" since both properties were setting their targets on young adults and were being released at about the same time. That doesn't seem to have been the case.

What "GTA IV" did impact was the sale of consoles. Microsoft said Xbox 360 sales jumped 54 percent in the week following the game's launch, compared with the prior week. Sony didn't reveal similar specifics but said there has been a significant spike in PS3 sales.

The contradictions extend beyond distribution. The running time of "Iron Man" is two hours and six minutes. "GTA IV" isn't nearly that linear; the game's criminal missions — which players can stop and start anytime — can take 60 hours to complete, not counting hours of multiplayer matches or exploration of Liberty City, the highly detailed virtual urban locale where "GTA IV" takes place.

But undoubtedly, the most influential contrast is cost. The standard edition of "GTA IV" is $59.99, while a special edition goes for $89.99 and comes with a soundtrack, art book, duffel bag and safety deposit box. Either way, every time a copy of the game is rung up, what's added to the week's tally is significantly more than the $7 average ticket price to see a movie in the U.S.

Quantifying the game's lucrative launch is trickier against other mediums. The book "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" sold more than 10 million copies at launch. That's acutally four million more than Bellic, but the Hogwarts student's final adventure cost about half as much as Bellic's mature-rated exploits.

There's one group that Bellic, Stark and Potter all individually reign supreme over: 'Nsync.

The pop quintet's "No Strings Attached" holds the record for biggest first-week CD sales with 2.4 million copies when it was released in 2000, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That's far meeker than the first-week success of "Iron Man," "Deathly Hallows" and "GTA IV."

Maybe the Eastern European gangster, boozy billionaire and boy wizard should form a boy band.

Dan's Note: I didn't write this, but I agree with every word!!

---------------------
All the hits, as good as we remember

It was 1974 all over again, and thankfully so, as SCTV veterans did their thing

Richard Ouzounian - Toronto Star Theatre Critic

Anybody searching for the Fountain of Youth is advised to pay a visit to the Second City on Mercer St. where The Benefit of Laughter opened last night for a two-performance run.

The five cast members from the iconic series SCTV – Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara and Martin Short – hadn't appeared together on a stage in 24 years, but you'd never know it.

They showed us without a doubt that they had the talent, the panache and that inexpressible larger-than-life quality called stardom that still makes them unique.

Nothing could make that clearer than a moment in the first sketch they performed, where O'Hara played a teacher summoning the worst parents of her class. All was going fine and then suddenly, a door flung open and there was Martin, a.k.a. Edith Prickley, in her leopard-clothed glory.

It was like someone had pulled an electric switch on the stage. Everything seemed brighter, funnier and the audience cheered their approval. And the first time Martin uncorked that incredible cackle of hers, all of us felt like it was 1974 all over again ... and boy, were we glad it was.

Miracles like that were in plentiful supply last night. Let Levy's clueless Earl Camembert do his slow burn through a news report where stolid partner Floyd Robertson (Flaherty, the king of deadpan) got all the good headlines and you practically fell apart with glee waiting for the final eruption that you knew would come.

When Martin's twitching, preening Ed Grimley triumphed over a superior candidate at a job interview and went into a dance that looked like a cobra squirming through a sea of Vaseline, everything seemed right with the world.

By the time Act II began with an episode of the Sammy Maudlin Show, bliss reigned supreme.

Flaherty sleazed his way through the talk show host with vintage grease, Levy's Bobby Bittman hit new heights of self-promotional hilarity and then the Earth stopped on its axis as O'Hara's bleached blond and white-spangled Lola Heatherton slunk into view, offering to bear all our children.

The medley of Canadian songs she did with Levy hit new heights of hilarity, ending with his ad-libbed "I don't know those kookie, crazy Canadian clouds after all."

The hits kept on a comin', as they used to say, with Short stopping the show as the loathsome Jackie Rogers Jr. and a gossipy hairdresser who uncorks lines like, "John McCain is so old, the only time he doesn't have to pee is when he pees."

There was also first-rate work from the inventive Colin Mochrie and the daffy, delectable Women Fully Clothed, but this evening belonged to the gang from SCTV.

They subtly saluted their absent friend John Candy by saying how much they missed his William B. Williams character during the Maudlin show but otherwise, it was laughter all the way.

Were they great in the past? Undoubtedly. Were they great last night? Absolutely. Will they ever be that great in person again? Only God and Guy Caballero know for sure.

Canuck film suspected as porn

TORONTO - The film "Love and Savagery" tells a romantic tale of passion and longing set in Ireland and Newfoundland, yet Canada Border Services officials recently held up footage from the movie because they suspected it was pornography.

The movie's producers shot scenes in Ireland last month, including some in a Catholic church, and had sent footage for processing to Montreal. The film was held by border officials for days at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.

"All of a sudden this batch of rushes got held up day after day after day at Canadian Customs," a bemused John N. Smith said in an interview from St. John's, where shooting on the Ireland-Canada co-production continues.

"There was a big kerfuffle and they suspected us of being involved in the pornography trade. They were insisting they were going to send it off to the RCMP lab to develop it to see if we were engaged in pornography."

Both Smith, who directed "The Englishman's Boy" and the award-winning "The Boys of St. Vincent," and Kevin Tierney, the producer of "Love and Savagery," suspect the menacing arm of Bill C-10 was at play.

The controversial bill, currently being debated in the Senate, would allow the government to withhold tax credits to film and television productions it deems offensive.

"There's now a kind of attitude that permeates the bureaucracy based on the signals they're getting from the elected ministers," Tierney said.

Border Services Agency officials said Wednesday they couldn't comment on specific cases, but noted they may choose to examine any shipment if they suspect it contains prohibited or restricted items, including pornography.

Tierney said Montreal border officials were suspicious based on the film's title, something he found amusing.

"As if we're going to make pornography in Ireland, and then label it 'Love and Savagery' - very subtle - and then send it to the porn capital of Canada. It's like bringing communion to the Pope. Are they out of their minds?" Tierney said incredulously.

Smith said the spectre of C-10, even though it isn't law yet, is looming large.

"The insidious C-10 rears its head in all these odd little ways," he said. "I don't think people realize how incredibly difficult this nonsense makes it for Canadian producers because if you don't have a guarantee that you're going to be able to make the movie, then it's going to screw up the financing. It's absolutely insane right now."

The threat from border officials to send the rushes to an RCMP lab for processing caused a tense few days for the filmmakers.

"This was 35-millimetre negative film - it's very, very critical, you can't just have any old lab go and process it," Smith said.

Tierney said he was ready to put his lawyers on the case, since the footage could have been ruined had it gone to the Mountie lab for processing. In the end, that wasn't necessary.

And Smith says there might be an added benefit to the misunderstanding about the film, which stars Newfoundland actor Allan Hawco and Irish actress Sarah Greene as star-crossed lovers.

"Who knows, we may get the raincoat crowd now," he said with a laugh.

Biographer: Country superstar Eddy Arnold dies at 89

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A biographer for country music superstar Eddy Arnold says the singer has died at the age of 89.

Belmont University Professor Don Cusic says Arnold died at a care facility near Nashville Thursday morning. Arnold was just days short of his 90th birthday.

Arnold's mellow baritone on songs like "Make the World Go Away" — a crossover hit on the pop charts in 1965 — made him one of the most successful country singers in history.

He became a pioneer of "The Nashville Sound," also called "countrypolitan," a mixture of country and pop styles.

He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1966. The following year he was the first person to receive the entertainer of the year award from the Country Music Association.

The Couch Potato Report - May 3rd, 2008

This week The Couch Potato Report peels the first Canadian talkie, along with a diving bell, a butterfly and some classic Caballeros!

If you ask most film buffs to name you the very first film with sound, just about all of them could tell you that the answer is the 1927 film THE JAZZ SINGER with Al Jolson.

But if you ask those same buffs what the very first Canadian film with sound was, you might not find very many people who can provide you with the answer.

Except for me!

The first Canadian film with sound was the 1931 made-in-Newfoundland film THE VIKING.

Now, you might be thinking "Wait a minute!! In 1931 Newfoundland was owned by Britain...and THE VIKING features an all American cast and crew...so how is it even considered to be Canadian?!?"

Well, Newfoundland is part of Canada NOW and the film features cold, barren landscapes, lots of snow, and rugged, but jovial people.

You tell me, is that not Canadian?!?!

Anyway, as the FIRST Canadian film made featuring sound, THE VIKING is a Canadian classic...albeit one in name only. This is not a classic film.

The acting is a bit stiff, the Newfoundland accents are less than authentic, and the story - a love triangle between a woman and two men, one who is all wrong for her, the other who would be perfect - is one that we've seen dozens and dozens of times before...but when this film was made in 1931, I suspect the love triangle was a new thing...one that had only been seen less than a dozen times.

What makes THE VIKING a film that is worth seeing, especially if you love movies, is the historic element of it, and the Newfoundland locations they used.

The action in the picture comes from the seal hunt, and the movie was filmed during the hunt, so there are actual sealers, the amazing ice floes, and some ships and a sea that you may never get to see up close.

No, THE VIKING isn't a classic film, but it is a Classic Canadian as it was this nation's first film to feature sound. So if that comes up in a trivia game, now you know.

Oh, and if you are wondering what the very first Canadian film was...the answer to that is E.P. Sullivan's and William Cavanaugh's EVANGELINE.

It came out in 1913 and it no longer exists, except for a few stills taken from promotional material.

But THE VIKING...this Canadian film does still exist...and it is now available on DVD.

Up next this week is the Academy Award nominated film THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY and this is a spectacular movie!!!

This film is the true story of a well-known magazine editor from France named Jean-Dominique Bauby.

In 1995 at the age of 43, Jean-Do suffered a stroke that paralyzed his entire body, except his left eye.

He was unable to speak or to move his head and his only means of communication was to blink his eye - one blink for yes, two blinks for no - as his loved ones and doctors read an alphabet to him.

Using his eye, he dictates his memoirs and both in his original book, and this fascinating film, and he eloquently describes the aspects of his interior world, from the psychological torment of being trapped inside his body to some of the stories that he imagines from places he's only visited in his mind.

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY was nominated for four Academy Awards in February, including the categories of writing and directing, and this is an incredible film that I think you should see, and I highly reccommend that you do!

I also highly reccommend our next film this week too...but from the opposite end of the spectrum. I highly reccommend that you stay away from this would-be fantasy epic.

What a boring waste of time THE GOLDEN COMPASS turned out to be!!

THE GOLDEN COMPASS is based upon the first novel in Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials.

Starring Daniel Craig - the latest JAMES BOND and Oscar winner Nicole Kidman the film is about an orphan living in a fantasy based parallel universe in which a dogmatic theocracy threatens to dominate the world.

When Lyra's friend is kidnapped, she travels to the far North in an attempt to rescue him and rejoin her uncle.

Now, I suspect that if you liked the book - whether you know it under it's British title "Northern Lights" or as "The Golden Compass" as it was published in the U.S. - you might enjoy the film, but I have not read it, and the film - even with a cast full of actors I enjoy, admire and respect - just didn't hold my interest.

Plus, some of the special effects looked great, while others looked awful....yeah, this film just doesn't work. Even though I usually love fantasy films, I can't be bothered spending any more time talking about THE GOLDEN COMPASS.

The final release that I have for you this week is the much more entertaining, and fun CLASSIC CABALLEROS COLLECTION, featuring Walt Disney's still interesting 1942 SALUDOS AMIGOS and it's 1944 sequel THREE CABALLEROS.

This DVD allwos you to join Goofy, Donald Duck and Walt Disney himself as they travel to Latin America to find new stories to tell, and experience all the music, beauty and excitement the region has to offer.

Admittedly, the CLASSIC CABALLEROS COLLECTION is for die-hard Disney, Donald Duck, Goofy, or psychedelia fans only...but for those folks, this DVD offers some dated, trippy fun.

The CLASSIC CABALLEROS COLLECTION featuring THREE CABALLEROS and SALUDOS AMIGOS, the would-be fantasy epic THE GOLDEN COMPASS, the fascinating, highly recomended film THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY and THE VIKING - the FIRST Canadian film ever made with sound are all available now on DVD.

Coming up on the next Couch Potato Report

The Canadian made film HOW SHE MOVE is about a high school student who is forced to leave her private school to return to her old, crime-filled neighborhood where she re-kindles an unlikely passion for the competitive world of step dancing.

Also next week is the DELUXE EDITION of the Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan film YOU'VE GOT MAIL and the failed romance drama P.S. I LOVE YOU.

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!

50 years since she said, 'Julie, don't go!'

Fifty years ago this Sunday night, Canada successfully invaded America, or more precisely, Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster made their legendary first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show.

They performed "Rinse the Blood Off My Toga," a wry historical parody of the type they excelled at. In tough detective-story style, private eye Flavius Maximus (Wayne) pursued Brutus (Shuster) for the murder of Julius Caesar.

And although they scored a hit, the biggest laughs of the evening went to another member of the cast.

It was Sylvia Lennick who brought the house down as Caesar's wife, Calpurnia, with her oft-repeated lament: "I told him, `Julie, don't go!'"

Lennick is 92 now, still living in Toronto. She's the only surviving member of the company from that historic night and she remembers it well, although the sharp-as-a-tack showbiz veteran begins her reminiscences with a vintage ham-on-wry quip.

"I don't know how it can be 50 years ago," she deadpans, "when I'm only 52."

Back in the 1950s, Ed Sullivan's Toast of the Town, which appeared on CBS-TV every Sunday night at 8 p.m., was one of the most influential media showcases in America.

Each week, an assortment of talent ranging from rock idols (Elvis Presley appeared, from the waist up) to novelty acts (remember Topio Gigo, the Italian mouse?) to stars of the latest Broadway shows (Mary Martin, Ethel Merman) would fight to be on Sullivan's show. A successful appearance could turn a career around overnight. It was a very big deal.

So was Lennick nervous about appearing on such a prestigious show?

"You're always a little nervous when you're performing," she ho-hums. "Without nerves, you might as well stay home. You work on those nerves."

She did have one major area of concern. "I was doing the part in a heavy Bronx accent and I thought to myself, `Here I am going where everybody talks like that!'"

But her mind was soon put at ease.

"In those days," she recalls, "they did two rehearsals the day of the show and all the actors in New York would come to the first one in the morning.

"I said my first line and they roared with laughter. Then when I made my exit, they applauded. That's when I knew I'd be fine."

The same thing happened at the afternoon's dress rehearsal and the live evening broadcast brought Lennick her biggest response of all.

The next day, all of America was buzzing about the show and "I told him, `Julie don't go!'" became an instant catchphrase.

Lennick was initially unaware of all the fuss.

"All I knew was I had gotten three hands on the same day with the same material. It was like I had gone to heaven."

It even made up for the fact that appearing on the Sullivan show had forced her to postpone her son David's bar mitzvah.

"And it all shows you how much I know," laughs Lennick.

"When I read the script, I never thought `Julie don't go,' was my big laugh line.

"I thought I was going to kill them when I said, `It's the Ides of March, already.'"

Boston To Wrap New Album After Summer Tour

Boston leader Tom Scholz tells Billboard.com he hopes to finish recording the band's next studio album after its summer tour and have it out "just after the first of the year."

Scholz says the album -- Boston's first since 2002's "Corporate America" -- is a mix of "really straightforward rock 'n' roll songs and some things that are pretty esoteric.

"When I first started," he continues, "I was doing music that had pretty simple themes. Then as I got into 'Third Stage' and 'Walk On' I got a little more technical and a little more involved, more complicated. In this one I'm trying to do both."

The new album will also include several songs from "Corporate America" that Scholz is remixing, rearranging and, in some cases, completely re-recording -- including the title track, "You Gave Up on Love" and "Someone."

"'Corporate America' was a really poor seller," Scholz acknowledges. "Very few people have heard it. I'd like to give some of these songs another chance to be heard."

Brad Delp, whose 2007 suicide "completely derailed" Scholz, appears on a couple of tracks on the new album.

Scholz says he felt "very weird" about playing Boston music without Delp at a tribute show last August, but has grown more comfortable with the idea during rehearsals for the summer tour with former Stryper singer Michael Sweet and Tommy DeCarlo, a fan Scholz discovered via a Delp tribute DeCarlo posted to YouTube.

"Brad was the most amazing musician [and] singer I've ever known. There's nobody on the face of this Earth that could replace him and do what he did," Scholz says. "But I have to say that these two guys, Michael and Tommy, do a really impressive job of performing these songs live.

"So it seemed wrong not to take it back out, and there were an awful lot of people out there that don't want to hear Boston go away," he adds.

Boston's tour kicks off June 6 in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Scholz has prepared a revised version of the group's "Greatest Hits" album to coincide with the tour.

Randy Newman Returns With First Album In Nine Years

Randy Newman is set to release his first album of new material in nine years. "Harps and Angels," produced by Mitchell Froom and Lenny Waronker, arrives via Nonesuch on Aug. 5.

"A Few Words in Defense of My Country," a single released exclusively to iTunes last year, will be included in the track list.

Newman's 2003 hits collection, "The Randy Newman Songbook: Vol. 1," was the singer/songwriter's last release and first for Nonesuch. His last original set, "Bad Love," was released in 1999. His highest Billboard 200 charting album was 1978's "Little Criminals," which peaked at No. 9.

Newman, 64, has a busy gig calendar in May, plus a concert with the Los Angeles Philharmonic during the Fourth of July weekend at the Hollywood Bowl.

He performed at this year's New Orleans Jazz Fest on May 1 and has another symphony-backed show in Denver on May 23. Additionally, he is slated to perform solo May 4 in St. Louis and May 5 and 6 in Iowa City, Iowa.

Here is the track list for "Harps and Angels":

"Harps and Angels"
"Losing You"
"Laugh and Be Happy"
"A Few Words in Defense of My Country"
"A Piece of the Pie"
"Easy Street"
"Korean Parents"
"Only a Girl"
"Potholes"
"Feels Like Home"

Pearl Jam Reteams With Brendan O'Brien For New Album

Pearl Jam has commenced recording of its ninth studio album with producer Brendan O'Brien, guitarist Mike McCready told Seattle radio station KISW yesterday (May 1). Though only "four or five" songs are complete so far, McCready said the band is hoping to release the record in 2008.

The new effort, a follow-up to its self-titled 2006 album, finds Pearl Jam reteaming with longtime producer Brendan O'Brien (Bruce Springsteen, Rage Against the Machine) for the first time since 1998's "Yield." O'Brien has produced Pearl Jam's "Vs." (1993), "Vitalogy" (1994) and "No Code."

"Brendan works really fast," bassist Jeff Ament has told Billboard.com. "He's a super pro. I've always felt, working with him, that he understood me as a bass player and that's not always easy. A lot of producers are there to please the singer. But I've always had a great rapport with him. I can tell him I want something to sound like the O'Jays or Led Zeppelin or PJ Harvey and he gets it."

"We've always been friends," said O'Brien. "They were great to me when we were making records together [before], and we still remained very good friends.... I still think they're a great band. Eddie [Vedder] has one of the best, if not the best, voices out there. When he sings, people believe them."

Pearl Jam is also about to embark on a 13-date East Coast tour that runs from June 11-30.

In an effort to support Portland, Ore., U.S. Senate candidate Steve Novick, the band has set aside special tickets to its sold-out shows in New York, Camden, N.J., and Washington, D.C., that include donations to Novick's campaign. Novick donation tickets to the Washington, D.C., show include access to a meet-and-greet with guitarist Stone Gossard.

Last month, Gossard was among a group of musicians that also included R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe, the Decemberists' Colin Meloy, Sleater-Kinney's Corin Tucker and Spoon's Britt Daniel who released a letter of support for the candidate.

Pearl Jam's eponymous 2006 album peaked at No 2 on the Billboard 200 and lead single "World Wide Suicide" reached No. 1 on the Modern Rock chart.

"Iron Man" producer Marvel mulling next movie

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - With "Iron Man" set to explode this weekend, the next question for producer Marvel Entertainment is: What now?

One big variable is who does the distribution. When its financing deal was announced in summer 2005, Marvel said the deal "guarantees distribution for 10 films" through Paramount.

But that guarantee means the Melrose Avenue studio must distribute movies Marvel brings to it. For Marvel, the pact is simply a two-picture deal, with "Iron Man" the first and Marvel obligated only to distribute its next movie through Paramount. (Universal's "The Incredible Hulk" is exempt.)

An additional provision requires that movies based on "Captain America" and "Nick Fury" go through Paramount should they be made, with either film also counting toward the two-picture deal. Sequels of Paramount-distributed movies also will remain with the studio.

As a result, Marvel properties including "The Avengers," "Thor" and "Ant Man" could conceivably end up with other distributors.

Three years ago, the company wanted to stress the Paramount deal to show it had a pipeline; now, with "Iron Man" tracking well, Marvel aims to show Wall Street that the fledgling studio has flexibility.

Marvel also needs to convince investors it can deliver a steady stream of product. Despite a deep reservoir of characters, it plans on releasing only two titles per year.

"There's a lot riding on 'Iron Man' for Marvel because they don't have a lot of movies," director Jon Favreau said.

Marvel likely won't be releasing any movies in 2009, as the studio would have to be in pre-production now to make a summer date but isn't, mainly because of fears that Hollywood's actors will go out on strike in the summer.

"We're not going to risk our characters by rushing them," Marvel president of production Kevin Feige said. When asked about the timing of an 'Iron Man" sequel, he added that "two or three years is the proper time between movies." Favreau added, "I'd do number two in a heartbeat."

The studio's next project is expected to be announced on an earnings call Monday, with "Avengers," "Ant Man" and "Thor" the favorites. ("Captain America" is a prime property but is perceived as a tough sale overseas.)

Some question whether the Marvel characters waiting in the wings have the appeal of previously licensed characters like "Spider-Man" and "The X-Men." But Marvel president David Maisel said the key ingredient to make a film successful isn't "more well-known or less well-known characters but tender-loving care."

The earnings call will prove an unusually direct referendum on Marvel. Most film studios get buried on a conglomerate balance sheet. But since the publisher-turned-studio will see much of its growth from movies, weekend grosses likely will make its stock price soar or fall, kind of like, well, a superhero.

Marvel's shares rose 86 cents, or 3%, to $29.55 on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, near its 52-week high of $30.27.

Aussie rockers Midnight Oil dusting off old albums

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - If there's a silver lining when a rock band breaks up, maybe it's that the members have more time to contemplate reissue projects.

This is the case with Midnight Oil, the politically inspired Australian rock band that enjoyed an unlikely international hit 20 years ago with a concept album about Aboriginal rights.

The band's 25-year run ended after imposing vocalist Peter Garrett announced in 2002 that he was quitting to pursue a career in politics. The surfing skinhead is now a member of Australia's new center-left federal government.

His comrades kept busy with various musical endeavors, but now guitarist Jim Moginie is leading an ambitious reissue project, beginning with the aforementioned album, 1987's "Diesel and Dust." The disc, which features the hit single "Beds Are Burning," has been remastered, and a bonus track called "Gunbarrel Highway" appended.

The band also has included a DVD documentary of its 1986 tour of the harsh Australian outback. The trek, during which the musicians viewed first-hand the abysmal poverty of Australia's Aboriginal people, as well as their cultural achievements, inspired the tunes on "Diesel and Dust."

"When you think about us singing about dispossessed indigenous people, you wouldn't think that would be a record that anyone would want to hear," Moginie, 51, told Reuters in a recent interview. "But it turned out that they did. There's hope for the world yet."

The album, the band's sixth release, went to No. 1 in many countries, and peaked at No. 21 in the United States. "Beds Are Burning," which receives U.S. radio airplay to this day, hit No. 17 on the pop chart.

MUSICALLY PALATABLE

While the lyrics were decidedly forthright, "Musically, I think we managed to make it reasonably palatable and simple in a way that anyone could enjoy it," said Moginie, who wrote or co-wrote most of the band's songs. "It had a good beat, wasn't too messy or complicated or ragged. It's pretty focused."

He said plans are in the works for a follow-up documentary that will retrace the band's steps in such desert settlements as Kintore East and Yuendemu, which were both immortalized on "Beds Are Burning."

"The same problems are still there," he said. "The petrol sniffing's still pretty rampant, same poverty."

In the meantime, he is working on a reissue for iTunes of the band's 1982 breakthrough "10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1," which featured tirades against their compatriots' political apathy, the American military and colonial arrogance.

Moginie and that album's producer, Nick Launay, also have shot a documentary about the making of the album.

"We did find a bunch of cassettes with some demos on it," Moginie said. "It's really interesting to listen to. It was quite surprising."

He hopes both projects will see the light of day within the next 12 months.

With Garrett rocking the halls of power, Moginie often gets together for writing sessions with drummer Rob Hirst and guitarist Martin Rotsey, and has "vague ideas about doing something in the future" with them.

But it would take a lot to bring one former Oils member back into the fold. Bass player Peter Gifford left after the band's extensive touring to promote "Diesel and Dust." He is now the Lamborghini-driving owner of a company that makes micro bikinis and lingerie, Wicked Weasel.

"He's quite the ex-rock star actually, much more than the rest of us," Moginie said. "We're still chipping away at the coal face, whereas Giffo's, 'Nah, nah. I'm finished with that. I'll just become a bikini millionaire."'

Apple's iTunes sells movies in U.S. on DVD release date

Apple Inc. announced Thursday that it is allowing U.S. customers to purchase films from its iTunes website on the same day they are released on DVD.

The introduction of the new service represents a shift for the major film studios, which previously had waited as much as 30 to 40 days after DVD distribution before offering new releases to the majority of video download services.

But Apple said it has partnered with most of the studios for its new offering, including 20th Century Fox, Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal and Sony Pictures Entertainment, as well as Lionsgate, Image Entertainment and First Look Studios.

Apple shares rose 2.5 per cent on the news, up $4.21 to $178.16 US as of midday in Nasdaq trading.

The service will allow US visitors to buy new release films for $14.99 US and older library titles for $9.99 US.

The announcement comes just three months after Apple announced users would be able to rent new release films through the iTunes store for $3.99.

New releases, however, are not yet available to customers in Canada through iTunes.

The decision by studios to allow users to either rent or own new release films could put added pressure on bricks-and-mortar retailers such as Blockbuster Inc.

Apple's announcement confirms that the other major studios are in step with Time Warner, whose chief executive, Jeff Bawkes, said during a conference call on Wednesday that the company's Warner Bros. studio would begin releasing movies for video-on-demand systems the same day they are released as DVDs.

That decision could open the door not only for online retailers like Apple and Amazon.com, but also spur use of cable pay-per-view systems or rental download systems like Apple TV.

Atlantic Canada's biggest music distributor to wind down

The biggest music distributor in Atlantic Canada is winding down its traditional business because of declining sales.

Landwash Distribution of St. John's is recalling thousands of CDs, tapes, books, DVDs and videos from hundreds of stores across Canada and returning them to artists.

Landwash, started 13 years ago, represents more than 100 Newfoundland, Labrador and Maritime artists, including The Fables and Kevin Collins.

Landwash owner Charlotte Story said company revenues were down 35 per cent last year, and 2008 looks even worse.

"I can't get the sales up. They just keep going down and down and down, and the sales are dying. And the writing is on the wall," she told CBC News.

Story blames free digital downloads and the industry trend toward having artists distribute directly to the public.

"It was just not viable now.… We're just not getting enough artists looking for distribution on the other side of things because they can now go to digital," she said.

Story, who began the company by releasing a single CD, a volume of Newfoundland and Labrador songs called Folk of the Sea, said Landwash is not insolvent.

She expects it will take until August before all the company's physical product is returned and she figures out how much she owes to artists, she said. In the meantime, she said she plans to explore the idea of only selling music online through Landwash.

Billy Sutton of The Fables said he doesn't know where he'll find another distributor to get his CDs to other parts of the country.

"Landwash, from what I know, was the only game in town that was getting out to other places in the country," he said. "And now that doesn't exist, so I have to find other distribution."

Kevin Collins was just weeks away from distributing his CD Just Call My Name when Landwash told him the project was off.

Collins said previous distributors Tidemark and Duckworth Distribution also bailed on their artists and ceased to exist.

"Here we go again. I mean, before, the money didn't flow back, or the product in a lot of cases," he said.

Fortunately, he was able to get St. John's company Avalon Music to take on his new CD.

Landwash was distributing two of his DVDs and more than half a dozen of his albums.

"And a lot of artists in Newfoundland and Labrador I'm sure are going to feel a greater impact. It just makes things tougher and tougher all the time," Collins said.

"The independent artists in Atlantic Canada, … it's all on their shoulders, and when something like this happens, it's a major blow to them."

In February, Landwash picked up its third East Coast Music Industry Award for best music distributor in Atlantic Canada.

New Kids On The Block Welcome 'Summertime'

The reunited New Kids On The Block will release its first new music since 1994 on May 13, when the single "Summertime" will be made available via all digital music services, according to a blog post today (May 1) on the group's official Web site. The track is the precursor to a new album the group hopes to release in the fall.

The reformed '90s boy band also announced it will stage its first performance in 14 years on NBC's "Today Show" on May 16, a preview to a tour for which dates have begun trickling out.

As previously reported, the first of those shows will take place May 17 at New York radio station Z100's annual Zootopia concert. The event, being held at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J., will also feature Miley Cyrus, Jordin Sparks, the Jonas Brothers, OneRepublic, Simple Plan, Sara Bareilles, Gavin DeGraw and Ferras.

The New Kids On The Block -- Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, Danny Wood and Jordan and Jonathan Knight -- split in 1994. The group announced its reunion on the "Today Show" earlier this year.

Here are the New Kids On The Block tour dates:

5/17/08 East Rutherford, N.J. Izod Center (Z100 Zootopia)
5/18/08 Mansfield, MA Tweeter Center
9/20/08 Montreal, ON Bell Centre
9/21/08 Toronto, ON Air Canada Center
9/23/08 East Rutherford, NJ Izod Center
9/24/08 Uniondale, NY Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum
9/26/08 Boston, MA TD Banknorth Garden
9/27/08 Atlantic City, NJ Borgata Hotel and Casino
10/4/08 Chicago, IL Allstate Arena

"Iron Man" poised to blast box office into summer

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hollywood studios are counting on actor Robert Downey Jr. and his big-screen incarnation as "Iron Man" to blast them out of a box office slump as the lucrative summer movie season opens this weekend.

The latest Marvel comics adventure is expected to gross $60 million to $80 million or more during its initial Friday-through-Sunday run in North American theaters, experts said, buoyed by heavy promotion and largely favorable reviews.

That would fall far short of the $151 million all-time record opening that "Spider-Man 3" notched during the same weekend last year, thanks to the frenzy surrounding a highly anticipated sequel to an established blockbuster franchise.

The first "Spider-Man" film still holds the record for biggest domestic opening by a non-sequel movie -- $114.8 million in the first weekend of May 2002.

"Iron Man" will probably rank more on par with yet another Marvel superhero drama, "X2: X-Men United," which opened the first weekend of May 2003 with about $85 million in receipts.

It cost a reported $150 million to make, sports plenty of nifty special effects, and stars Downey as a wealthy weapons executive and playboy wrestling with a mid-life crisis as he invents a powerful high-tech suit of armor to fight bad guys.

The PG-13 film, the first production fully financed by Marvel Studios, is likely to enjoy an added boost from a super-sized "preview" roll-out in more than 2,000 theaters on Thursday night, before its formal weekend opening on Friday, where it will play in just over 4,100 theaters.

HOPING FOR HEAVY PREVIEW BUMP

Marvel and its distribution partner, Viacom Inc's Paramount Pictures, are banking on buzz and positive word-of-mouth to help usher in large weekend audiences.

"I think that reflects how important a film this is, and how confident Paramount is that there's a huge audience out there for the movie," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box office tracking service Media By Numbers.

"Iron Man" also will benefit from relatively mild competition. The only other new wide-release movie in U.S. and Canadian theaters is romantic comedy "Made of Honor," starring Patrick Dempsey, which Columbia Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp, is offering in a "counter-programming" move.

Marvel and Paramount are not alone in wishing for a robust "Iron Man" launch. Hollywood as a whole is rooting for the film to jump-start the summer movie season, an 18-week period that can account for as much as 40 percent of annual ticket sales.

So far this year, North American ticket sales are down about 3.5 percent from 2007 and attendance is off 6.5 percent.

A crowd-pleaser in May is seen as crucial to reinvigorating the box office and generating audience excitement. "That's how you build audience goodwill, repeat business and momentum," Dergarabedian said.

He said living up to last summer's record $4.1 billion box office will be tough, however, given 2007's glut of blockbuster sequels and "threequels" led by "Spider-Man 3," "Shrek the Third" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End."

But this summer has its own succession of big-event titles besides "Iron Man." They include "Speed Racer," "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian," "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" and "Sex and the City."

The summer of 2008 has one other ironic factor in its favor -- a gloomy economy, which in years past has often proven to be a box office boon as downtrodden Americans flock to the cinema to seek solace in big-screen adventures and comedy.

Nickelback frontman given minimum sentence, $600 fine for drunk driving

SURREY, B.C. - The lawyer for Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger says he will appeal the rock star's conviction for clocking a blood alcohol reading at almost twice the legal limit.

Kroeger was handed a $600 fine and a year-long driving suspension today at a sentencing hearing in Surrey, B.C. and said afterwards that he made a mistake that he hopes his fans don't repeat themselves.

Kroeger had been pulled over for speeding in June 2006 and a police officer suspected him of drinking.

Kroeger was acquitted of an impaired driving charge, but convicted on the charge of driving with a blood-alcohol level over .08.

His lawyer, Marvin Stern, says the case involved important legal issues that should be considered on appeal.

Stern says Kroeger was convicted on what he called a `technical convention' and acquitted on the charge of whether the singer was drunk or not.