Abc Family

Baltimore native Jason Winer, 36, is set to direct a remake of the 1981 Dudley Moore comedy "Arthur," starring Russell Brand, according to The Hollywood Reporter . Winer is a key figure behind ABC's "Modern Family," and recently won a Directors Guild of America award for his work on the show.

LOS ANGELES - Strictly in terms of dollars and cents, the deal announced yesterday for the Walt Disney Co. to buy Fox Family Worldwide for about $3.2 billion is not in a league with a transaction like that of AOL-Time Warner or even Viacom-CBS. But it is, nevertheless, a noteworthy moment in the relentless push toward media consolidation, with important programming implications for television networks like Disney-owned ABC, and an even larger cultural significance in terms of who will become the principal teller of children's stories worldwide.

BROTHERS AND SISTERS: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON Buena Vista Home Entertainment / $59.99 At first glance, the ABC family drama Brothers and Sisters seems like a Pottery Barn catalog with some movement and dialogue thrown in for good measure. It's lavishly furnished with a strong cast including Sally Field, Calista Flockhart and Rachel Griffiths but leaves you a little cold in its crisp, uncluttered world. GRINDHOUSE PRESENTS: DEATH PROOF -- EXTENDED AND UNRATED Weinstein Co. / $29.95 Moviegoers didn't take to Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse, a double-feature homage to low-budget, high-octane '70s B-films.

Series The New Adventures of Old Christine: : After an easily flustered mom (Kristen Johnston) calls Christine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) "a rock," Christine - who never met a compliment she didn't like - soon discovers being responsible is just exhausting. (8 p.m., WJZ-Channel 13) The Chopping Block: : Two teams of eight compete in culinary challenges for a chance to open their own restaurant. In the first competition, the teams create menus for host Marco Pierre White to judge by the end of the day, and then open their restaurants for service within 48 hours.

As I noted Saturday, The Hunger Games movie was off to a big weekend, and the totals are huge: about $155 million. To give it some perspective, that topped the total from the Top 12 movies for all but two weekends this year, according to Box Office Mojo, which tracks these things. The adaptation of Suzanne Collins' novel ranked third all-time for opening weekend gross, behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ($169.2 million) and The Dark Knight ($158.4 million)

John Waters and Walt Disney on the same wavelength is not something I ever would have predicted. But then, the one thing that makes even stranger bedfellows than politics is popular culture -- particularly when there's a mega-hit like the Broadway adaptation of Waters' 1988 film, Hairspray, involved. Disney's ABC Family cable channel tonight will present Beautiful Girl, a made-for-TV movie produced by Disney's Touchstone Productions about a young woman who becomes an unlikely beauty pageant contestant.