Entertainment [3]

Chi McBride looms large on Boston Public, and not just because he is 6-foot-5. Playing principal Steven Harper, a tough, moral and compassionate leader of a public high school, McBride casts a considerable shadow on the set and in viewers' eyes.

Well, it's finally happened. Eric Clapton is acting his age. While his mum likely would be proud, the rest of us apparently have to suffer.

Fifteen years ago, Paul Hogan was merely that friendly guy on the Australian tourism ads who offered to put another shrimp on the barbie for us. Then came Crocodile Dundee, and suddenly Hogan was a phenomenon. The 1986 movie grossed $360 million and spawned a 1988 sequel, Crocodile Dundee II.

While film and video producers have curbed marketing of adult-content material to young people, the music industry continues targeting under-17 customers with products that have explicit and violent material, according to a federal report issued Tuesday.

Greg Clarkin: FTC claims record company could do more to warn of explicit content

Jennifer Crystal Foley has a dual TV personality this month.

By his own admission, Tim McGraw is hardly the world's best singer. But country music's reigning male vocalist knows how to make you believe in what he's singing.

One Night at McCool's, a so-so black comedy that pretty much hinges on Liv Tyler's come-hither gaze, is plot-heavy, but about as involving as a stick of gum.

The most hardened cynics may dismiss the music of ABBA as pure bubble gum. But chew on this: Mamma Mia!, based on the Swedes' biggest hits, is a worldwide smash on stage.

In the 1980s, Paul Reubens -- as Pee-Wee Herman -- went on a Big Adventure.

When Chana Gazit used to tell people that she was working on a documentary for PBS on the Flood of 1927, she used to get a common response: What flood of 1927?

Nowhere is the American fascination with gambling more gallingly displayed than in the synthetic gaming Mecca of Las Vegas. Nowhere has there been such a nexus of criminal kingpins, nor has there ever been as insidious an alliance between them and the nation's political and industrial elite. Nowhere else has greed so blatantly been glorified as a way of life than in this city in the Nevada ...

In The Biographer's Tale, A.S. Byatt's new novel, Phineas Nanson, a graduate student, abandons the world of literature, and especially that of postmodern literary theory, for the world of facts.

There aren't many people left who can provide eyewitness testimony about the beginnings of the U.S. space program. Even fewer remain who were there before the beginning -- before Mercury, before NASA, before Sputnik started the space race. Chris Kraft is one of those few.

Five years is an eternity in the music world. Fickle fans find new objects of affection, popular music shifts more than California fault lines and, more often than not, an artist's talent slips.

John Cameron Mitchell created the off-Broadway hit Hedwig and the Angry Inch a few years ago, and even he was slightly shocked by its success. It became a cult favorite with a loyal following and played to consistently full houses.

Arnold Schwarzenegger won't be running for governor of California in 2002.

The Claim, the impressive new film from British director Michael Winterbottom, is part frontier adventure and part existential meditation. Loosely based on Thomas Hardy's novel The Mayor of Casterbridge, it follows characters of varying ethical fiber through a labyrinth of greed, loss, and near-redemption.

Leonard Shelby has no short-term memory. He's lucky to recall something that happened just minutes before.

In March 1931, two white women accused nine black teen-agers riding a hobo freight train of rape. The men were arrested near Scottsboro, Alabama, and put on trial. Eight were sentenced to death, despite flimsy testimony from the women, one of whom later recanted. The ninth, 13, got life in prison.

In kind of a chicken-or-egg scenario, Garth Brooks and his favorite songwriters have long had a mutual-admiration society. Could he have had the hits without the songs? Could they have had the songs without the hit-maker?

The media -- of which this site is a dutiful member -- like pigeonholing. Doesn't matter how many books Steve Martin writes, he'll always be the wild and crazy guy. Doesn't matter that Mike Nesmith is in his 50s and has long since established a successful career in multimedia production, he'll always be that wool-hatted guy in the Monkees.

Renee Zellweger is dazzling as the irrepressible star of Bridget Jones's Diary, the highly anticipated film adaptation of Helen Fielding's international bestseller.

Most of the cast from the hit NBC show The West Wing toured parts of the White House Sunday.

Imagine a scenario in which a film's male stars starve themselves on salads, while its leading lady is tanking on the pounds.

Kenny Rogers will be officially recognized for his professional comeback when the Academy of Country Music hosts its 36th annual awards ceremony next month, becoming only the fourth entertainer to receive the honor.

Television history is being made with Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

<I>By Paul Clinton CNN Reviewer</I>

For Survivor fans, the signs are everywhere.

Aaron Sorkin, creator of the Emmy-winning drama The West Wing, was arrested Sunday in Burbank, California, for investigation of drug possession, authorities said Monday.

British TV sitcom star Caroline Aherne is up for a top award for her behind-the-scenes skills as a director.

Ex-Beatle Sir Paul McCartney has revealed fashion guru daughter Stella borrows his tatty clothes.

The Beatles' movie A Hard Day's Night has been re-released in Britain 30 years after its first success.

Pop idol David Bowie is mourning the death of his mother.

Although British actor Colin Firth says he's had very little success in Hollywood, he's aware that the new movie Bridget Jones's Diary could change that.

The chain-smoking, weight-obsessed, singleton Bridget Jones is coming to a phone near you.

The official selection of films at the Cannes Film Festival has been unveiled, covering a grim range of themes.

Michael Chabon won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction on Monday for his 2000 novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (Random House).

Rising star Craig David made up for his Brits disappointment by picking up a pair of trophies at a showbiz awards event.

Robert Downey Jr.'s latest arrest on drug charges and subsequent departure from Ally McBeal on Tuesday left Hollywood shaking its collective head ... again.

Rapper Eminem and teen sensation Britney Spears have been given a raspberry by American teenagers.

Entertainer and television pioneer Milton Berle is suffering from a cancerous tumor in his colon but will not undergo surgery, his wife told CNN.

Ally McBeal star Calista Flockhart has delayed her London stage debut -- blaming the UK elections and the foot-and-mouth crisis.

Morgan Freeman calls Alex Cross, the detective he plays in Along Came a Spider, the thinking man's action hero. Having played Cross before (in Kiss the Girls, 1997), he knows what makes him the center of attention.

Movie star Hugh Grant has revealed how he once ripped the windscreen wipers from another driver's car in a fit of road rage.

A clergyman has been sent hate mail because he plans to sell off the church hall stage where John Lennon and Paul McCartney first met.

British sitcom star David Jason has showed off his baby daughter after becoming a father for the first time at age 61.

Titanic Actress Kate Winslet has told how being pregnant was the most difficult role she ever had to perform.

<I>By Paul Clinton CNN</I>

Paul McCartney and his girlfriend, Heather Mills, met with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell Thursday to discuss their efforts to clear minefields around the globe.