Candice Bergen

Starring Kate Hudson, Anne Hathaway. Directed by Gary Winick. Released by 20th Century Fox. $29.95; blu-ray $39.95 * (1 star) dvds Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway are two of the most appealing actresses working today: beautiful, smart, talented, endearing. How did they ever get mixed up in a piece of dreck like this? Liv (Hudson) and Emma (Hathaway) are lifelong friends at first thrilled they're both getting married at roughly the same time. But both dream of getting married at New York's Plaza Hotel, and when there's only one date available and both get booked for it (Candice Bergen plays the unfortunate wedding planner)

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN *** 1/2 ( 3 1/2 STARS) This weekend the Charles Theatre is doubling up this fall hit with another *** 1/2 movie, ( 3 1/2 STARS) A Secret, in one of its theaters, so Baltimore moviegoers get a fleeting chance to see the year's best horror movie and its most moving Holocaust tragedy on the same screen. Consider Let the Right One In the thinking person's Twilight, and maybe the feeling person's, too. This Swedish horror movie cum coming-of-age film honors its thriller roots while telling the heartbreaking story of a lonely boy (Kare Hede-brant)

Just in time for the holidays: a new service to set up quick conference calls on the run.As of yesterday, subscribers to US Sprint's long-distance calling card can set up a three-way conference call from any touch-tone telephone, be it in a hotel lobby, airport terminal or shopping mall.Dubbed "QuickConference," the service requires no operato assistance, a feature that distinguishes it from other conferencing services currently available, said Don Goldman, director of messaging and operator services for US Sprint.

About 38 million viewers tuned in to see Murphy have her baby (a boy) on Monday's season-ending episode of "Murphy Brown," starring Candice Bergen. The CBS sitcom got a 23.0 rating from Nielsen (percentage of the nation's 92.1 million TV households) and a 35 share (percentage of sets in use), its second-highest ever. (The highest was Sept. 16, 1991, its premiere this season, when it had a 23.8/35). "Evening Shade," which followed "Murphy Brown" just for the night (it also aired in its 8 p.m. normal time slot)

"Seinfeld" will become even more like Seinfeld this season.The hit NBC sitcom, which stars droll stand-up Jerry Seinfeld as himself, will feature an ongoing storyline in which he negotiates with NBC for his own series, the comedian told TV critics in Los Angeles yesterday.The plot will begin with the Aug. 12 third-season opener and continue through at least five episodes. It could run the entire 22 segments, says Mr. Seinfeld, also the show's producer. "We don't know where it's going, but as long as it can live, we'll do it."

Los Angeles -- THE TELEVISION Critics Association gave "Murphy Brown" its comedy award, but amid the congratulations executive producer Diane English admitted that there is some trepidation about the next year of the series."

The In-Laws is a high-concept remake of a 1979 wild comedy that clicked with fans because of the offbeat chemistry between Alan Arkin as a slow-boiling dentist and Peter Falk as a soft-shoe secret agent - mismatched parents thrown together by the marriage of their kids. The idea seems to have been "let's do it over like a family-film-cum-Bond-movie," but Spy Kids beats it silly on that score. This picture's notion of a Bond parody is to play Paul McCartney songs over an action scene. The odd couple this time is Albert Brooks as a punctilious podiatrist and Michael Douglas as a brasher sort of CIA man enmeshed in a deep-cover operation.

Scott Bakula, Dana Delany, Candice Bergen and Burt Reynolds are the best leading performers on series television, according to voters in the 7th Annual Quality Awards of the Viewers for Quality Television organization.And the best two programs on the air this season were ABC's canceled "China Beach" among drama series and CBS' "Murphy Brown" among comedies, say members of the Virginia-based advocacy organization.There was remarkable consensus about what constitutes quality programming on TV. For while the recent mail balloting asked for voting in 13 categories, all the awards ended up encompassing just seven shows.

Learning the ropes CNN reporter Mike Chinoy, one of the first Americans to enter China in the early 1970s when the Communist nation began to open to outsiders, plans an hourlong special, "China: The Quiet Revolution," tonight.The program recounting the Beijing bureau chief's two decades as an inside China watcher premieres at 9 p.m. on the cable network, and follows Mr. Chinoy on a recent attempt to revisit people he encountered during the days of the Chairman Mao Tse-tung's Cultural Revolution.

Where does reality stop and fiction begin in television viewing? It is becoming harder to tell.Last week, the CBS series "Murphy Brown" thoroughly blurred the distinction by featuring a group of real TV news figures attending fictional Murphy's (Candice Bergen) baby shower. And then at least two of the real newsies -- CBS' Paula Zahn and NBC's Katie Couric -- talked about it the next day on their networks almost as if the shower had been real.Tonight brings another curious reality warp, for the TBS cable network has shelved a planned episode of "The Brady Bunch" out of respect for the memory of Robert Reed, the lead actor in the series who died last week.