Entertainment [4]

You're sitting in a restaurant, enjoying your dinner and all of a sudden someone screams out Booger! For most people, this would not be an appetizing experience. But Curtis Armstrong, who played the aptly named nose-picking character in 1984's Revenge of the Nerds, still gets noticed for that role -- and says he has no complaints about it.

After a summer spent gulping down the ''Coca-Cola moments'' of ''American Idol,'' watching the too-long-awaited fourth-season premiere of ''The Sopranos'' felt like sipping fine wine -- delicious and intoxicating.

The events: The 54th annual Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, the Governor's Ball and the after-parties thrown by 20th Century Fox, Entertainment Tonight and HBO, among others.

A lot of mystery surrounds the origins of jazz, from where it was born to where the word itself came from. But one thing is certain: it has found a home in Monterey, California.

Rarely can you attend a wedding without hearing At Last. And you can't hear At Last without thinking of Etta James, the soulful belter who cut the definitive version of that song.

While Igby (Kieran Culkin) spends the duration of this dour comedy fleeing from the dysfunction wealth and privilege have dealt him, Rachel (Amanda Peet), the mooching choreographer mistress of Igby's godfather (Jeff Goldblum), desperately latches on to this old-money world.

During the last season of ''The Sopranos,'' there was a lot of talk about whether the drama was misogynistic because it depicted violence against women (especially the fatal beating of a stripper and the rape of Lorraine Bracco's Dr. Melfi).

Hey, how 'bout that Axl Rose, eh? Can the guy still bleat and scamper around the stage or what? Did you even make it to that point in the MTV Video Music Awards, or did you give up around the time 'N Sync's Justin Timberlake started doing the Michael Jackson dance steps and falsetto singing that the King of Pop himself declines to grant us these days?

A writer friend of mine likes to tell an anecdote about a jazz musician he once interviewed. They were discussing the relationship between making music and using drugs and alcohol. ''I guess there are musicians out there who've never smoked no reefer, never took no pills, never drank no whiskey,'' the jazzman mused, before fixing my friend with a sardonic stare and asking, ''But what kind of music...

From 1977 through 1984, viewers tuning in to Three's Company watched the unctuous Larry Dallas brag about his way with the ladies to Jack, Janet and Chrissy (and, later, to Cindy and Terri), his neighbors in apartment 201.

Somehow, it should be a different world. The country -- the planet -- goes through a cataclysm like the September 11 attacks, and one expects everything to change.

Eve may be best known for spittin' rhymes alongside Gwen Stefani, but she's determined to blow your mind all over again with her latest career moves -- which include the release of her new album, Eve-Olution, and a starring role in the film comedy Barbershop, opening September 13.

If it's getting close to Emmy Awards time (September 22), that means it's another year when one of the best-written, -acted, and -directed shows on the air gets ignored.

For most people, there are not enough hours in the day, but they're not Burt Ward. People will come around our house and say, 'I can't believe how much living is going on here!' he says with a laugh.

They called it T. Rextacy, and in early 1970s Britain, that oddly named affliction was the biggest thing anyone had seen since Beatlemania.

In The Banger Sisters, Goldie Hawn plays Suzette, a former super-groupie who sets out to prove that solid friendships don't die.

They're the four words that strike deep fear in any true ''Sopranos'' fan's heart: ''Teleplay by Michael Imperioli.''

You remember electronica, or techno, or whatever term you used to describe it over the last decade?

Just a few weeks ago, Kelly Clarkson was just a young woman waiting in line with thousands of other wannabes, hoping for a chance to audition for a show that promised a shot at stardom -- but that no one had really heard of.

Just a few weeks ago, Kelly Clarkson was just a young woman waiting in line with thousands of other wannabes, hoping for a chance to audition for a show that promised a shot a stardom -- but that no one had really heard of.

Did you cry? Did you get off your couch and cheer when Kelly Clarkson won? It's almost impossible to channel my inner beeotch (inner!) and say mean things about the last few minutes of the show. How could you not be moved by her mom weeping or her dad nervously chomping on his gum? How about when her voice broke during ''A Moment Like This''? Or when Christina Christian and Nikki McKibbin had to h...

Many years ago, Sly and the Family Stone released a song with the gracious, utopian title, Everybody Is a Star.

Give me some fat, old-school hip-hop beats and some gravel-covered lyrics, and my little Isuzu turns into a bulletproof limousine speeding through downtown Atlanta.

The reigning queen of teen pop is relinquishing her throne -- at least for six months. Britney Spears has decided it's time to get away from the cameras, stay out of the tabloids and recharge her batteries.

On the morning of September 11, Neal Baer was doing some pre-production planning for a five-hour miniseries about bioterrorism in New York.

To play hip, young New York fashion designer Melanie Carmichael, Reese Witherspoon went, well, legally blonder.

Children living in New York City and across the country affected by the events of September 11 expressed themselves by writing letters and poems and by drawing illustrations.

On September 11, life turned on a dime.

No matter how well you know the smart, funny ''A Hard Day's Night,'' a new DVD special edition makes you feel like a virgin.

The African-American staff and customers who populate the tonsorial parlor owned by Calvin Palmer (Ice Cube) in the eager-to-entertain, conservative comedy Barbershop are denizens of present-day South Side Chicago.

Vampires -- can't live with 'em, can't kill 'em...unless you're packing some garlic and holy water.

Here's a tale of a true city. London, 1874. Whores, high society, smut-soaked streets, the polished ceilings of Royal Albert Hall.

The new movie The Four Feathers is based on a much-filmed 1902 novel by A.E.W. Mason. In fact, this is the fifth adaptation for the big screen, after three silents and a 1939 version starring Ralph Richardson.

Is there a secret spirit-of-youth elixir being passed around among the world's senior filmmakers?

How's this for a rave: Igby Goes Down is the best coming-of-age film since The Graduate.

The soon-to-be-infamous ''rant'' in Nick Tosches' ''In the Hand of Dante'' -- a piece of provocation finely calibrated by a masterly hype artist -- is really no more offensive than Marquis De Sade's ''Justine'' or N.W.A's ''Greatest Hits'' and, in general, better reasoned than both.

One thing you may want to know about ''Saturday Night Live'' is that, from copious evidence offered in ''Live From New York,'' a lot of people, no matter which cast of any era, disliked Chevy Chase.

It's been nearly a decade since the wistful, tender hilarity of ''The Virgin Suicides'' brought first-time novelist Jeffrey Eugenides literary fame.

One-eyed Mike and double-horned Sulley, the working-stiff heroes of ''Monsters, Inc.,'' made their last major public appearance at the Academy Awards, sheepishly applauding the victory of ''Shrek'' over ''Monsters, Inc.'' as the Best Animated Feature Film of 2001.

Every once in a great while, a film reaches out and moves you unexpectedly. Moonlight Mile is one of those films.

Unhappy to be leaving the familiarity of her old neighborhood, a sullen and fearful 10-year-old girl wanders away from her parents on the road to their new home, finds herself in a mysterious, enchanted world, undergoes trials requiring bravery and resourcefulness, and emerges with courage to face the new.

A boon to the ''young readers'' it's pitched to and the Jung readers who'll spend seasons analyzing its expansions on world mythology, Michael Chabon's ''Summerland'' is a baseball novel that gives new meaning to the words fantasy league.

Three veteran journalists promise to take us Inside the 9/11 Plot and explain Why the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop It. Their book, The Cell, delivers -- on the first count, anyway.

Sadomasochism is treated as a joke in ''Secretary,'' but the fun of the movie is that it's also much more than a joke.

There's a photo of Beck and Willie Nelson, posed as if they'd just walked in from working on the railroad. While Nelson looks as natural in his grit as in his wrinkles, Beck looks like a sly hipster, and all the grime in the world can't wash that away.

Diehard Tom Clancy fans raced to the bookstores the moment Red Rabbit hit the shelves and made it an instant bestseller. If you're not a member of that not-so-elite club and you haven't read the new Jack Ryan novel yet, do yourself a favor.

Small rooms, smoky nights, cheap hotels. Big rooms, bright lights, posh resorts. Jackie Mann did them all.

The formula for a Clive Cussler novel is simple: three parts adrenaline and one part water. His latest novel, Fire Ice, written with mystery author Paul Kemprecos, is an earnest attempt to replicate the formula. But something's missing.