Carrey

Let's hope that for Jim Carrey, the fate of The Number 23 doesn't mean that his number is up. He doesn't give much of a performance in this hollow trick thriller. Nobody could. The Number 23 (New Line Cinema) Starring Jim Carrey (left), Virginia Madsen, Danny Huston. Directed by Joel Schumacher. Rated R. Time 95 minutes.

For one brief and insane moment Andy Kaufman is back in "Man on the Moon," Milos Forman's ecstatic homage to one of the greatest comedic provocateurs of his time. Disappearing entirely into a man of myriad personae but seemingly no core identity, Jim Carrey doesn't so much act here as inhabit a character who is comfortable only when he's bouncing off the walls of his own private hall of mirrors."Man on the Moon" is that rarity in this season of long, self-righteously tasteful literary adaptations: It's a movie that actually moves, whisking the audience on a funny, sad and extraordinary journey through a singularly compelling moment in American pop culture.

Frankly, my dear, you can find someone else. Pat Conroy, author of "The Prince of Tides," has walked away from a deal to write a second sequel to Margaret Mitchell's 1936 "Gone With the Wind" after getting into a dispute with the executors of her estate. "I went through more negotiations with this `Gone With the Wind' than the Germans did in World War I with all the clauses at Versailles," Conroy told the New York Times.Johnny Carson on the mendRetired "Tonight Show" host Johnny Carson is doing well a week after quadruple bypass surgery, a hospital spokeswoman said yesterday, though he probably won't go home until after the weekend.

ATLANTA-- In "Liar, Liar," Jim Carrey portrays an attorney cursed with a spell that renders him unable to lie.Coming soon to theaters near you: In "Oh, God, What a Bunch of Liars," Mr. Carrey stars as Pat Robertson. George Burns returns as God.All right, that's not true. It's a lie.But you'd need a full-length motion picture to do justice to the way Mr. Robertson's Christian Coalition mutilates No. 9 of the 10 Commandments it would post on public school walls. That's the shalt-not against bearing false witness.

All George Martin wanted to do was find a day job that would let him make music in the evenings. What he ended up doing was helping revolutionize the world of popular music.From 1962 to 1970, George Martin was the "fifth Beatle," the producer who saw to it that the genius of John, Paul, George and Ringo made it onto vinyl for all the world to hear. His crisp production, not to mention his careful shepherding of the group's talent and energy, played a huge role in creating the second great revolution in rock and roll.

"The Truman Show" is a movie and the name of a television show within the movie, both of which star Jim Carrey. This tidy little metaphysic is superbly maintained throughout Peter Weir's flawlessly executed film.From its opening moment, "The Truman Show" explores the porous membrane between fiction and reality -- are we watching the TV show or the movie about the TV show? -- and it never veers from its mission to keep the difference ambiguous.In its themes it recalls such films as "Network" and "Natural Born Killers."

BOSTON -- I didn't make it in time for the delivery. It was just one of those things. A traffic jam on the Internet. Creep and beep. Stall and crawl. Everybody trying to get to the same Web site at the same time.When I was finally admitted to the birthing room at www.ahn.com in the Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando, Fla., Elizabeth had already given birth to the 7-pound, 8-ounce baby boy with the full head of black hair. And everyone, save baby Sean, was congratulating themselves for an Internet birth well done.

For those who haven't been able to watch a Jim Carrey movie since suffering through "The Cable Guy," Fox offers a reminder of how funny he can be."Mad About You" (8 p.m.-8: 30 p.m., WBAL, Channel 11) -- The birth of Baby Buchman draws ever nearer, so Paul and Jamie grow ever more frantic. Tonight, the goal is to impress their birthing class instructor, played by Marsha Warfield of "Night Court." Meanwhile, why are Paul's mother and sister so reluctant to sign a release for the "Buchman" documentary?

In "Liar, Liar," Jim Carrey's pants are certainly on fire -- and they'll burn all the way to the bank.The movie is far funnier than it is good, and at the same time it's slightly more respectable than the wanton stupidity of the Silly Putty-faced comic's earlier hits, like the Ace Ventura movies or "Dumb and Dumber." It manages to climb that rung up from guilty pleasure to simple pleasure. You can actually admit to other grown-ups you like it.Basically, the film consists of a mild setup that liberates Carrey to go nuts, to sail away on improvisations so astonishing they get you into the far realms of oxygen debt; then, when you've endured enough pain, it returns to its tone of labored cuteness.

"I'M PROBABLY mistaken but I thought I saw your son hanging around at the mall. Hanging. At the mall. Your son," said my friend."No way, I thought," she continued. "Not the son of a woman who once wrote the local economy's downfall could be traced to teens 'roaming the corridors of Marley Station like packs of wild animals marking their territory with the scent of Polo, Nautica and Old Spice.' "I made a mental note to refrain from voicing my opinions in print, a medium that has crept out from beneath a refrigerator magnet to haunt me more than once.

Michael Jackson's drug history to be probed Detectives investigating the death of Michael Jackson are looking at his prescription drug history and trying to talk with his numerous former doctors, the Los Angeles police chief said. Jackson's father, Joe Jackson, told ABC News in an interview that he believed "foul play" was involved in his son's death. But in the interview aired Friday on Good Morning America, Jackson did not elaborate. Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton told CNN that police are waiting for the coroner's report before ruling out any possibilities in their "comprehensive" investigation into the sudden death of the 50-year-old pop star two weeks ago. The coroner's report will determine the cause of death and hinges on time-consuming toxicology tests.

Should you see Yes Man? Well, maybe. Let's be clear: If ever a movie mistook a premise for a plot, it's this one. Some films suffer from a surfeit of one-liners. This picture evaporates midway through because the story itself is a one-liner. Yet it also has a cast that gets into the silliness. This film's lead actors can turn odd curves into dynamite goofballs. It's all about the grooviness that descends on a negative guy, Carl Allen (Jim Carrey), a bank loan officer in Los Angeles, when he makes a covenant with self-help guru Terrence Bundley (Terence Stamp)

Lisa Lampanelli is an equal-opportunity basher. Blacks, whites, Asians, Jews and Hispanics are all in the cross hairs of this up-and-coming insult comic. The only demographic she doesn't lampoon on stage? Europeans. "You only hurt the ones you love," she said. "That's why I don't make fun of French people and Europeans - because they smell and I hate them. They do. Try smelling one. I have. Horrible." Tomorrow, Lampanelli brings her stinging stand-up act to Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. She has about a week to refine her live routine before she tapes a one-hour special for HBO at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, Calif.

The original Noah had a job of what might be called biblical proportions - cubits this way, cubits that way, animal uprisings, cat dander. But at least he didn't have to follow Jim Carrey. Steve Carell doth. Evan Almighty, the Old Testament-derived comedy opening today and starring Carell as God's handmaiden, is director Tom Shadyac's quasi-sequel to his ridiculously successful Bruce Almighty, the 2003 Carrey-driven farce that became one of the most lucrative comedies ever (close to $500 million worldwide)

THE QUESTION Jim Carrey's new movie is The Number 23. What is your favorite Carrey movie, and why? WHAT YOU SAY Despite his crazy and peculiar antics in most of his movies, my favorite Jim Carrey movie is Liar Liar. Some of his actions were true to form, but he also displayed a great deal of compassion toward his young son while trying to appease all the disappointments that befell him. Freda Garelick, Baltimore THE NEXT QUESTION Samuel L. Jackson's new movie, Black Snake Moan, hits theaters today.

Let's hope that for Jim Carrey, the fate of The Number 23 doesn't mean that his number is up. He doesn't give much of a performance in this hollow trick thriller. Nobody could. The Number 23 (New Line Cinema) Starring Jim Carrey (left), Virginia Madsen, Danny Huston. Directed by Joel Schumacher. Rated R. Time 95 minutes.

WHAT YOU SAY Even if my family and I hadn't seen the real Queen Elizabeth II last summer coming down the mall from the palace in an open carriage for a palace guard ceremony, I will see Helen Mirren in The Queen again and again. This movie features spectacular acting, real life drama, and beautiful on-site scenes. The DVD will be a shoo-in. David Boyd, White Hall In the last year, I have seen the movie The Queen two times and I could see it again. Helen Mirren simply mesmerizes me with her performance and I plan to buy it on DVD so that I can invite friends over (who have not seen it)

NEW YORK -- Tea Leoni isn't one of those actors who becomes whatever she is playing. But roles tend to rub off on her a bit. "It does affect you," she says, her sky blue eyes widening for emphasis. That residual effect is one of the reasons she was so happy to act opposite Jim Carrey in Fun With Dick and Jane. In the comedy, opening Wednesday, they play an upper-middle-class couple who, after Dick's sleazy boss absconds with all the company's funds, resort to robbery to maintain their lavish lifestyle.

Doing a sequel to The Mask without Jim Carrey sounds like a really bad idea. As Son of the Mask proves, it is. Jamie Kennedy (Malibu's Most Wanted) stars as cartoonist Tim Avery, a forlorn, unappreciated drone in an animation studio whose wife (Traylor Howard) desperately wants a child. Tim is averse to the idea, he says, because he wants the sort of job that would make his child proud of him, but really it's because he's too much of an arrested adolescent to shoulder anything like responsibility.

You can't help but feel sorry for Steven Kovacs (Matthew Broderick), the unfortunate architect who becomes the target of The Cable Guy (10:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m., TBS). The cable guy (Jim Carrey) does Kovacs a favor, giving him free premium cable. In return, he asks only that Kovacs hang out with him. Some "only." At first, the cable guy is just overbearing, calling all the time, giving his new friend presents, showing up uninvited. But then he becomes dangerously "helpful," helping Kovacs win back his girlfriend by beating up her date.