Bill Paxton

It's great that Disney is pushing his new movie hard, says Bill Paxton. The studio is promoting The Greatest Game Ever Played as an inspirational family film in the same vein as such earlier studio releases as Remember the Titans and Miracle. Certainly such promotion should put plenty of people in theater seats when the film opens today. Game tells the story of Francis Ouimet, a 20-year-old Bostonian who overcame all manner of obstacles to come out of nowhere and win the 1913 U.S. Open golf championship.

Series The Chopping Block: : Each team has to create a dish using only ingredients found in Central Park. Jim and Nina Zagat guest star. (8 p.m., WBAL-Channel 11) American Idol: : The remaining finalists perform classic Motown songs, and Smokey Robinson and Berry Gordy help pay tribute to the Motown sound. (8 p.m., WBFF-Channel 45) South Park: : Everyone in town starts pointing fingers when it comes to who is responsible for the state of the economy. (10 p.m., Comedy Central) Movies Vertical Limit: : Chris O'Donnell plays a former mountain-climbing expert who returns to the Himalayas to try to rescue his sister (Robin Tunney)

"A Simple Plan" is sure to send a chill down filmgoers' spines, literally and figuratively.Set in the frigid tundra of a north Michigan winter, this foreboding tale of greed and destruction will send audiences diving for their wraps, if only in a fit of vicariousness.Yet even more chilling is this movie's unrelenting examination of the dark side of human nature. Here, banality and evil co-exist with unsettling ease, making even such cozy environs as a kitchen or a baby's nursery suddenly exude a weird sense of foreboding.

INSIDE TODAY WHAT THEY'RE SAYING TODAY' SUN COLUMNISTS Myopic NBA nostalgia By constantly being compared with how things were during Michael Jordan's career, today's NBA can't seem to be viewed as anything but inferior. But that ignores the way things really are. Sports baltimoresun.com/steele OTHER VOICES Michael Dresser on crosswalk hazardsMaryland Edward Gunts on Pratt Street visionsToday 5 THINGS TO DO TODAY Night Strike Unlimited Bowling -- Enjoy unlimited glow-in-the-dark bowling and DJ music at Strike Bethesda.

It's late at night, and a worried-looking, middle-aged businessman is standing alone at the edge of his suburban, backyard swimming pool lost in thought. It has been a day of mounting business debts, as well as threats on his life from a menacing rival. And now, as an anxious wife waits upstairs, he holds a little, blue Viagra pill in the palm of his hand. No, it's not Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), of The Sopranos. It's Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton), of Big Love, an intriguing new series about a Utah polygamist with three wives and three families all living in the same cul-de-sac.

"U-571" is the kind of war picture that William Holden used to star in -- the kind where he rallies his co-stars (let's say Frederic March, Mickey Rooney, Alec Guinness and Don Taylor) to outsmart the enemy, manages a few sardonic cracks and never gets his hair mussed. Matthew McConaughey is no William Holden, but "U-571" still makes good use of his limited range in a World War II submarine thriller that is executed with efficiency and skill. McConaughey plays Andy Tyler, a Navy lieutenant who has just been turned down for a command of his own submarine when he is called upon by his lieutenant commander, Mike Dahlgren (Bill Paxton)

All The King's Men Sean Penn is populist firebrand Willie Stark in this second big-screen adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's celebrated novel, about shady politics and other crooked dealings in Louisiana. The first adaptation won the 1948 Best Picture Oscar. Confetti In this British mockumentary, three couples try to win a contest for the Most Original Wedding of the Year. Feast In this final film from HBO's Project Greenlight series, bar patrons and grisly monsters have it out with one another.

Series The Chopping Block: : Each team has to create a dish using only ingredients found in Central Park. Jim and Nina Zagat guest star. (8 p.m., WBAL-Channel 11) American Idol: : The remaining finalists perform classic Motown songs, and Smokey Robinson and Berry Gordy help pay tribute to the Motown sound. (8 p.m., WBFF-Channel 45) South Park: : Everyone in town starts pointing fingers when it comes to who is responsible for the state of the economy. (10 p.m., Comedy Central) Movies Vertical Limit: : Chris O'Donnell plays a former mountain-climbing expert who returns to the Himalayas to try to rescue his sister (Robin Tunney)

I'm at a loss to decide what is most distressing about "Mighty Joe Young," the saga of a 2,000-pound gorilla and his unhappy encounter with the Hollywood lifestyle. So I'll let you decide. Could the big problem be:A) The filmmakers took a B-movie released almost 50 years ago, a film whose strengths were slight but endearing, and made it seem like a masterpiece in comparison with the "Mighty Joe Young" of 1998, whose message (men with guns -- bad!) is slapped on with a trowel and whose emotions are as genuine as a 22-foot-tall monkey.

"Traveller" ventures into darkly intriguing environs.Its subject is an intensely secretive Irish clan living deep in the damp woods of North Carolina. Piously observant of its own customs, the clan discourages contact with outsiders. The one acceptable reason for interaction with others is for the purpose of scamming them.The Travellers' business is the con. More problematic is romance.Directed by Jack Green, an accomplished cinematographer ("Twister," "The Bridges of Madison County"), the low-budget drama "Traveller" effectively evokes a generations-old subculture that exists just beyond the law and just above poverty.

BIG LOVE -- HBO Home Video / $99.98 When the teasers for HBO's new series, Big Love, first came out, a television show about a family of polygamists seemed indescribably sleazy. In the series' first complete season, being released Tuesday on DVD, Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton) has three wives (Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny and Ginnifer Goodwin) who live in adjoining homes, and with whom he has fathered seven children. Because polygamy is illegal, the Henricksons lead lives of subterfuge and deceit.

All The King's Men Sean Penn is populist firebrand Willie Stark in this second big-screen adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's celebrated novel, about shady politics and other crooked dealings in Louisiana. The first adaptation won the 1948 Best Picture Oscar. Confetti In this British mockumentary, three couples try to win a contest for the Most Original Wedding of the Year. Feast In this final film from HBO's Project Greenlight series, bar patrons and grisly monsters have it out with one another.

It's late at night, and a worried-looking, middle-aged businessman is standing alone at the edge of his suburban, backyard swimming pool lost in thought. It has been a day of mounting business debts, as well as threats on his life from a menacing rival. And now, as an anxious wife waits upstairs, he holds a little, blue Viagra pill in the palm of his hand. No, it's not Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), of The Sopranos. It's Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton), of Big Love, an intriguing new series about a Utah polygamist with three wives and three families all living in the same cul-de-sac.

It's great that Disney is pushing his new movie hard, says Bill Paxton. The studio is promoting The Greatest Game Ever Played as an inspirational family film in the same vein as such earlier studio releases as Remember the Titans and Miracle. Certainly such promotion should put plenty of people in theater seats when the film opens today. Game tells the story of Francis Ouimet, a 20-year-old Bostonian who overcame all manner of obstacles to come out of nowhere and win the 1913 U.S. Open golf championship.

"U-571" is the kind of war picture that William Holden used to star in -- the kind where he rallies his co-stars (let's say Frederic March, Mickey Rooney, Alec Guinness and Don Taylor) to outsmart the enemy, manages a few sardonic cracks and never gets his hair mussed. Matthew McConaughey is no William Holden, but "U-571" still makes good use of his limited range in a World War II submarine thriller that is executed with efficiency and skill. McConaughey plays Andy Tyler, a Navy lieutenant who has just been turned down for a command of his own submarine when he is called upon by his lieutenant commander, Mike Dahlgren (Bill Paxton)

"A Simple Plan" is sure to send a chill down filmgoers' spines, literally and figuratively.Set in the frigid tundra of a north Michigan winter, this foreboding tale of greed and destruction will send audiences diving for their wraps, if only in a fit of vicariousness.Yet even more chilling is this movie's unrelenting examination of the dark side of human nature. Here, banality and evil co-exist with unsettling ease, making even such cozy environs as a kitchen or a baby's nursery suddenly exude a weird sense of foreboding.

The makers of "The Evening Star" are so worried that you won't remember its predecessor from 13 years ago, "Terms of Endearment," that they continually interrupt the movie to show you photos of the first cast. There's Debra Winger as Shirley MacLaine's doomed daughter Emma, and there's Jeff Daniels as her feckless, worthless son-in-law Flap.This must happen at least 10 times, and each time it's a mistake, because it reminds you that almost no one in this movie is as good as anyone in that movie, and that this movie doesn't get any closer to your heart than your gag reflex, while that one nested instantly between the ventricles.

BIG LOVE -- HBO Home Video / $99.98 When the teasers for HBO's new series, Big Love, first came out, a television show about a family of polygamists seemed indescribably sleazy. In the series' first complete season, being released Tuesday on DVD, Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton) has three wives (Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny and Ginnifer Goodwin) who live in adjoining homes, and with whom he has fathered seven children. Because polygamy is illegal, the Henricksons lead lives of subterfuge and deceit.

I'm at a loss to decide what is most distressing about "Mighty Joe Young," the saga of a 2,000-pound gorilla and his unhappy encounter with the Hollywood lifestyle. So I'll let you decide. Could the big problem be:A) The filmmakers took a B-movie released almost 50 years ago, a film whose strengths were slight but endearing, and made it seem like a masterpiece in comparison with the "Mighty Joe Young" of 1998, whose message (men with guns -- bad!) is slapped on with a trowel and whose emotions are as genuine as a 22-foot-tall monkey.

"Traveller" ventures into darkly intriguing environs.Its subject is an intensely secretive Irish clan living deep in the damp woods of North Carolina. Piously observant of its own customs, the clan discourages contact with outsiders. The one acceptable reason for interaction with others is for the purpose of scamming them.The Travellers' business is the con. More problematic is romance.Directed by Jack Green, an accomplished cinematographer ("Twister," "The Bridges of Madison County"), the low-budget drama "Traveller" effectively evokes a generations-old subculture that exists just beyond the law and just above poverty.