Alec Baldwin

"30 Rock" star Alec Baldwin broke down the difference between the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate the other night on David Letterman's show.  His take?  The House = "Jungle" The Senate = "Poshest golf club"  Seriously, Baldwin's impression of the genteel southern gentlemen who inhabit the Senate is quite funny. Watch below:     

I find it most amusing to read about the super rich paying their fare share. Fine. I hope that when measures to that end are finally taken, the tax collectors won't neglect to soak such luminaries as, say, Barbara Streisand, Oprah, Michael Moore, Alec Baldwin and George Soros, to name just a few. Paul C. Shugrue, Baltimore

"The Getaway"Starring Alec Baldwin and Kim BasingerDirected by Roger DonaldsonReleased by UniversalR-rated*** Here's a word you won't find in many film reviews and in fact many critics don't even know what it means. But you guys who actually pay your money to go to the movies use it all the time and know exactly what it means: Cool.Cool in the sense that "The Getaway" is really cool.Based more on the McQueen-MacGraw 1972 movie that was directed by the great Sam Peckinpah than on the ridiculous Jim Thompson novel of 1958, it's the story of a sexy bandit couple on the run across the Southwest from three pursuers: the law (a minor irritation)

There was a showdown of epic proportions tonight on "30 Rock. "  Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made her long-awaited appearance on the show and did not disappoint.  After exchanging barbs with ex-boyfriend Jack Donaghy who's played by Alec Baldwin -- Jack apologized for "drinking with Karl Rove on Valentine's Day" and Rice confessed the identity of her favorite movie: "'Mars Attacks!' is awesome" -- the duo engaged in a music battle.  It was piano vs. flute and no chords were barred.

Alec Baldwin says he's a new man. After an ugly split from actress Kim Basinger - and a decade of headlines about the couple's acrimonious public spats - he insists he's no longer a tabloid-hating, Republican-baiting, angry tough guy. "I am changed as a human being as a result of this," Baldwin tells the New York Daily News. "I don't want any unnecessary conflict, I don't want to take any risks. ... You wind up living a very cautious lifestyle after something like this happens to you."

NEW YORK -- These days, if a part calls for someone to play brazen, caustic or swaggering -- in short, a real man's man -- one actor seems to have a lock on the role. At least that's how it appears from Alec Baldwin's near-ubiquitous presence lately portraying men like Jack Donaghy, the bombastic and preening network executive on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock. Baldwin calls them "man of authority" characters, "something you need to do sort of unflinchingly," he said during a lunch break on the show's Queens set in New York City, as he wolfed down a plate of rice and sauteed tofu.

"Nuremberg," a four-hour film about the trial of 22 Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg after World War II, is the kind of made-for-TV movie the broadcast networks rarely make anymore - a historical work of social conscience with a rock-ribbed moral center. And they should be ashamed. Lucky for us, cable television channels such as HBO and TNT have stepped in to fill the void. And they should be commended. "Nuremberg," which premieres tomorrow night on TNT, is one of the more important made-for-TV movie events of the year.

I find it most amusing to read about the super rich paying their fare share. Fine. I hope that when measures to that end are finally taken, the tax collectors won't neglect to soak such luminaries as, say, Barbara Streisand, Oprah, Michael Moore, Alec Baldwin and George Soros, to name just a few. Paul C. Shugrue, Baltimore

Liz Lemon, the lead character in Tina Fey's new NBC sitcom 30 Rock, is Mary Richards in television hell. The manic energy and high-spirited fun of this backstage romp comes from her struggle as a head TV writer with two on-the-job devils - a new network boss who defines corporate "suit" (Alec Baldwin) and a new leading man who admits to having multiple "mental health issues" (Tracy Morgan). The result is one of the zaniest - and most savvy - workplace comedies in years. On TV 30 Rock airs at 8 tonight on WBAL (Channel 11)

In the movie version of Augusten Burroughs' memoir, Running With Scissors, the writer-producer-director, Ryan Murphy, best-known for creating FX's Nip/Tuck, uses a cascade of goofy-creepy episodes from Burroughs' early life for gross-out comedy and psychodrama and even grosser sentimentality. It's a clever variation on you'll laugh, you'll cry entertainment - here, you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll gag. But it's a bit too much like a TV series: That '70s Show becomes "That '70s Freakshow."

"30 Rock" star Alec Baldwin broke down the difference between the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate the other night on David Letterman's show.  His take?  The House = "Jungle" The Senate = "Poshest golf club"  Seriously, Baldwin's impression of the genteel southern gentlemen who inhabit the Senate is quite funny. Watch below:     

Avatar . ( 3 STARS) $50.3 million $430.1 million 4 weeks Rated : PG-13 Running time : 2:40 What it's about : A paraplegic ex-Marine (Sam Worthington, above) controls the body of an "avatar," a body of a creature on another planet, and gets caught up in a struggle between the humans and the natives. Our take : James Cameron has delivered the most-anticipated blend of live-action and motion-capture animation to date, but the story's simplistic.

"It's Complicated" isn't: It's pretty simple. It's simply a good time, a relatively adult and easygoing conveyance for three ace performers of a certain age, working through a few comic machinations created by writer-director Nancy Meyers. Her earlier romantic comedy, "Something's Gotta Give," offered a similar payout. You like that one, you'll like this one. The fun isn't related to directorial finesse; if anything, that earlier Meyers film starring Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson was better-tooled than "It's Complicated," which has an oddly jumpy editing rhythm, offering five abrupt separate shots when one or two would do. And yet, this tale of a Santa Barbara, Calif.

Brothers . 1/2 ( 3 1/2 STARS) Jim ("In America") Sheridan's movie about wartime trauma and the way it drifts through an entire military clan has three of the best performances of the year: Tobey Maguire is a tough, competent Marine who endures a nightmare stint in Afghanistan; Jake Gyllenhaal is his black-sheep brother, who steps up in the family when the leatherneck is away; and Natalie Portman is the military wife who leans on the ne'er-do-well's shoulder...

For months, Bryan and Michael Voltaggio have tried to outdo each other on the hit reality TV show "Top Chef." Both brothers, who hail from Frederick, made it to the final round, along with Kevin Gillespie. Tomorrow, the contestants have one last chance to impress the judges and vie for the title. Will the winner be Bryan, the older, even-tempered brother who runs Volt in Frederick? Or Michael, the cocky, tattooed chef who now lives on the West Coast and likes pushing the limits?

With viewers rejecting most of the new network shows and stars this fall, NBC is going with the old tonight. Two of the network's biggest former stars return tonight, and they'll probably mean big ratings. PAGING DR. GREENE He lost his first wife to the law - and a lover in Milwaukee. He lost his dad to cancer. And after eight years on the show (1994 to 2002), Dr. Mark Greene (Anthony Edwards) left the world of ER altogether. But final seasons for long-running dramas and careers that don't exactly take off for stars who leave those dramas make for strange bedfellows.

The August heat may be getting to Alec Baldwin. Two young women say they called the cops last weekend when the "maniacal" actor nearly ran their car off New York's Long Island Expressway. Bonnie Lewis, 28, and Heather Hanna, 25, claim Baldwin displayed some major road rage - even pretending to shoot them - when they all got caught in a traffic jam on Saturday morning. Lewis says she and her friend were on their way to the Hamptons when she shifted lanes just as "traffic came to a dead stop" in Nassau County.

In video the seasons come and go as they do everywhere, if not always in sync with seasons in other entertainments with which video competes for time and attention.Early autumn, for example, with a new TV season unfolding, is usually a slower period in video stores. But this fall there are some big titles to promote -- three principal specimens being "Pretty Woman," with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, one of the best box-office performers of all time (Oct. 19); "Total Recall," with Arnold Schwarzenegger (Nov.

LOS ANGELES -- Alec Baldwin could be barred from contact with his daughter after he left a threatening tirade on her voice mail, calling the 11-year-old a "rude, thoughtless little pig" and vowing to "straighten your [expletive] out" on his next visit. The 30 Rock star's tape-recorded rant was obtained by the celebrity Web site TMZ.com after it was reviewed by the judge overseeing the long-running custody dispute between the actor and his Oscar-winning ex-wife, Kim Basinger. Infuriated that daughter Ireland failed to answer his scheduled phone call April 11, Baldwin, 49, launched into a screaming fit. "I am tired of playing this game with you. ... You have insulted me for the last time.

NEW YORK -- These days, if a part calls for someone to play brazen, caustic or swaggering -- in short, a real man's man -- one actor seems to have a lock on the role. At least that's how it appears from Alec Baldwin's near-ubiquitous presence lately portraying men like Jack Donaghy, the bombastic and preening network executive on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock. Baldwin calls them "man of authority" characters, "something you need to do sort of unflinchingly," he said during a lunch break on the show's Queens set in New York City, as he wolfed down a plate of rice and sauteed tofu.