Pick Hits

At The Movies

Duplex

In terms of living the American Dream, Alex (Ben Stiller) and Nancy (Drew Barrymore) have it pretty good. But one thing is missing, a home of their own. That is, until they unexpectedly find their dream house. But their new home comes with one feature they didn’t expect, an upstairs rent-controlled tenant named Mrs. Connelly, who isn't quite as easy going or frail as Alex and Nancy originally anticipated. As their blissful life begins to seriously fray around the edges, their dream home rapidly turns into a nightmare. It's then that they start to wonder, if they can't move Mrs. Connelly out with dark but hilarious results. 

On Video

Daddy Day Care

An old-fashioned family comedy that tickles the audience's funny bones. Two fathers (Eddie Murphy and Jeff Garlin) join the ranks of the unemployed and are forced to take their sons out of the exclusive Chapman Academy and become stay-at-home fathers. With no job possibilities on the horizon, the two dads decide to open their own day care facility, Daddy Day Care, which boasts some fairly unconventional and sidesplitting methods of tending the kids. As Daddy Day Care starts to catch on, it launches them into a hilarious competition with Chapman Academy's tough-as-nails director (Anjelica Huston) for the hearts and minds of the children.

Off the Record

Fuel

Natural Selection

This Pennsylvanian quartet’s third album continues their streak of angst-filled hard rock. With spectacular and unrelentingly professional layered harmonies, massive guitar walls, no doubt Fuel will be overtaking radio and hard rock video outlets, in turn giving bar bands the world over a chance to add some new moves to their itinerary, proving that arena rock does not need an arena to flourish. Natural Selection shows a harder side of Fuel than Something Like Human, which was more of a comprehensive album. Musically, Natural selection is its equal, but Something Like Human was simply a broader album. This new effort by Fuel is the same beautiful rock sound that we've come to expect.

The Buzz...

Naomi Watts (The Ring) is the top contender for the lead female role in Peter Jackson's King Kong, a remake to be distributed by Universal Pictures.

Although no official word from MGM has been released yet, a November 2004 release date has been set for the Jinx spin-off that would have Halle Berry reprising her role from Die Another Day. Berry is expected to begin production after Catwoman wraps up.

Will Ferrell will lend his voice as The Man in the Yellow Hat in the animated feature based on the hit children's book. The film originally planned to be a mixture of live-action and CGI, will now instead be a full-length animated feature and has a projected release date of November 2005.

Zakk Wylde will be a special guest on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live on Friday, September 26. Zakk will discuss his career and new projects and will perform live during the show.

Billboard reports that Metallica took in $46.4 million and drew 683,472 headbangers to 19 dates on their Summer Sanitarium 2003 tour. The tour reaffirmed the box-office clout of the band, who are currently in the planning stages of an extensive headlining tour next year, tentatively set to begin in March.

Fresh on the heels of their Emmy victory, four West Wing cast members have received whopping salary raises, ending four months of protracted negotiations. Variety claims the salary hikes for Allison Janney, Richard Schiff, Bradley Whitford and John Spencer will place them among the highest-paid actors working in TV drama.

Coupling, NBC's racy new sitcom, described as a sexier, PG-13 version of Friends, hasn't won over fans at two affiliate stations, which have decided to yank the series before it airs. Both stations were bombarded by complaints from people who had seen show promos and were upset about the series' sexually explicit talk.

Tom Green has his nights free again. MTV has pulled the plug on the former gross-out king's late-night talk show.

Despite a slew of gimmicks aimed at reversing Miss America's rating slide, 10.3 million viewers, an all-time low, tuned in to watch this year's three-hour telecast. That's less than half the viewers Miss America had as recently as 1995, and 1.7 million fewer than last year's telecast.

Years of discussion about a new studio album from the surviving members of the Who appears to be finally giving way to action. A post on guitarist Pete Townshend's official Web site reveals that he and frontman Roger Daltrey will begin demoing new material and plan to hit the studio in March for the group's first studio album in 21 years.

The Black Sabbath box set, Black Box: The Complete Original Black Sabbath (1970-1978), will feature remastered versions of the band's albums with Ozzy Osbourne and a live DVD with previously unseen footage.  The box set is due November 4th and retailing for $99.98.

Godsmack have been officially confirmed as the opening band for Metallica (as stated on Metallica's website) on their upcoming European tour. The band were previously scheduled to open for Ozzy Osbourne on his European trek, but ended up pulling out of the tour.

The Offspring have changed the title of their forthcoming album. Originally set to be called Chinese Democracy (You Snooze, You Lose), the album, which is due for release on November10th, will now be titled Splinter.

With Mel Gibson's plans to shoot Mad Max: Fury Road stalled because of war, he has signed on to star in Under and Alone, based on the true story of ATF undercover agent Billy Queen, who infiltrated a dangerous motorcycle gang.