Off The Record...
Ruff Ryders

Ryde Or Die, Vol 2

The hip-hop supergroup, featuring DMX, Eve, The Lox, and Drag-On, introduces a secret weapon, Yung Wun, for its second set. Guests include Dr. Dre, Busta Rhymes, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Method Man & Redman, and Trick Daddy, while the first single, Got It All, produced by Teflon, pits Eve against Lox member Jadakiss in a battle of the sexes. What more could hip-hop fans want?

At The Movies...
Chicken Run

Flock to the theater to see Chicken Run, the first animated film of the summer that will satisfy adults and kids alike. The first feature from animators Peter Lord and Nick Park, the claymation combo behind Wallace and Gromit, keeps their trademark deadpan humor intact and offers moviegoers the summer's most endearing heroes. The film's intro is an ingenious homage to The Great Escape, featuring barbed wire fences, prison huts, and the watchful farmwife, Mrs. Tweedy. From within Hut 17, a band of fine, feathered inmates do their best to hatch an escape plan. This could do for poultry what Babe did for bacon.

On Video...
Hanging Up

Three sisters, three cell phones, one world of grief. Diane Keaton, Meg Ryan and Lisa Kudrow, make a believable trio of siblings. Each is naturally funny and has superb timing. They swap gossip about their lives and deliver catty opinions about whichever sister is out of earshot. Most tellingly, they either face or flee from the fact that their once-brilliant writer father (Walter Matthau) is not only losing his wits, but also dying. The satiric point is immediate and well taken, we live in a world overloaded with contact but short on true connection.

The Buzz...

In the latest network bid for a share of the reality-based television trend, 10 people will relinquish their privacy on a new TV series. CBS is seeking to match the success of Survivor with Big Brother, a show that has the contestants isolated in a 1,800-square-foot home built on a corner of a CBS Studio Center parking lot. 

A $5,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the conviction of those responsible for vandalizing the graves of two founding members of the Southern rock group Lynyrd Skynyrd. The tomb of Ronnie Van Zant and the mausoleum containing the ashes of Steve Gaines were broken open last week at Jacksonville Memory Gardens.

Napster Inc. claimed in court that it should not be shut down because users of its popular song-swapping software are protected by federal law that allows copying music for personal use. This is in direct response to the Recording Industry Association of America's request for a preliminary injunction to shut down Napster until the association's lawsuit against the company is resolved.

Titanic star Kate Winslet has formed a film production company with her husband, and they aim to begin shooting their first picture in 2001.

Comedy Central is looking to a graffiti artist to develop its next animated comedy hit. The cable channel has ordered two scripts in addition to the completed pilot for Urbania from Justin Bua. Set in a fantastical urban locale, the series follows the life of 4'10'' Squatty, who breakdances at bar mitzvahs, and his buddy Juisto, a phone sex operator.

Although the British creators of Wallace & Gromit are stunned by the success of Chicken Run, don’t hold your breath waiting for a sequel. The studio's next movie will be an Aardman version of the Aesop Fable The Tortoise and the Hare.

Tina Turner will be giving her famous raspy voice and high-energy stage show a permanent rest when she retires at the end of her current tour. Turner, 60, announced her plans to a 75,000-strong crowd in Zurich as she kicked off the European leg of her 24-7 tour. Turner will still perform live but only at special one-off concerts for charity or old friends.

'80s filmmaker John Hughes has a pair of new projects that will reharness the strengths of his classic teen flicks like Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Hughes has committed to write, direct, and produce an as-yet-untitled modern-day Cinderella story for an eight-figure bankroll. The director is also said to be in talks to remake his much-loved film The Breakfast Club.

Riding high off The Perfect Storm, Mark Wahlberg has just been cast in the Charlton Heston role in Tim Burton's planned remake of Planet of the Apes, which begins shooting later this summer.

A political advertising campaign that uses wrestler Hulk Hogan to pitch a development project to the people of Clearwater has one major flaw: Hogan resides outside the city limits and isn't eligible to vote in the referendum on the plan.

Middle America has the Home Shopping Network, and soon wealthy Americans will have their own TV channel. Scripps Networks (which owns Home & Garden TV and Food Network), has begun marketing Fine Living, a proposed 24-hour cable network aimed at people with lots of money. Target date for launch is sometime in the second half of 2001.

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