Claire Danes

With a cast that seems to include every A-list dramatic actress in Hollywood, Evening qualifies as a major motion picture event on pedigree alone. Still, all the star power in the world can't gloss over a plot that's not nearly as poignant as it thinks it is, or a melodramatic narrative that comes across as much ado about not very much at all. For Evening is an odd mix, a film that dwells on one woman's past romantic missteps while simultaneously stressing...

No complaints at all today. The first new series of the fall season is unveiled tonight, and it could well wind up as the best of the bunch. It's called "My So-Called Life" -- and if you miss it, it's your so-called fault.* "My So-Called Life" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., Channel 13) -- Last season, the unknown redhead who shot to stardom was David Caruso. This season, it ought to be Claire Danes, who is, and plays, a 15-year-old on this superb new series from the creators of "thirtysomething." I don't want to sound excessively enthusiastic, but I loved every minute of it, and so did my 12-year-old daughter, who saw as much truth and entertainment in "My So-Called Life" as I did. Executive producers Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, and writer-producers Winnie Holzman and Scott Winant, have concocted something that's visually and viscerally powerful.

LOOK FOR FULL REVIEWS IN TOMORROW'S MOVIES TODAY SECTION Cheaper by the Dozen 2 In a sequel to a remake, Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt are back as the parents of a 12-member brood, this time butting heads with a family of eight headed by Eugene Levy. PG. Opens Wednesday. The Family Stone Diane Keaton, Craig T. Nelson, Luke Wilson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Dermot Mulroney, Rachel McAdams, Claire Danes and probably a few other big names we forgot to mention star in this comedy about a bride-to-be (Parker)

Maybe breaking into song would have helped.This steadfastly inert film production of "Les Miserables" manages to take one of the great works of 19th-century literature, a novel of individuals struggling for survival as French history unfolds around them, and turn it into a story so generic, it may as well have been set in Milwaukee -- or on Broadway, where the musical version is threatening to run forever.Making the film doubly shameful is that it wastes the talent of a spectacular cast, especially Liam Neeson as the hulking, haunted Jean Valjean and Uma Thurman as the doomed Fantine.

Shopgirl presents itself as a modern, thoughtful rumination on today's dating scene, and posits the idea - hard for some people to accept, I'm sure - that the best person out there may not be the best person for you. All of which is wonderful fodder for a sensitive comedy film offering finely tuned insights into the 21st-century human condition. But there's a central dishonesty to Shopgirl that undercuts much of what the film is trying to do and renders moot much of what it is trying to say. Claire Danes is the title character, working the glove counter at Saks and daydreaming about a romance she has yet to find.

THE SIMPSONS MOVIE Fox DVD / $29.99 John Cleese once said that after putting together the first Monty Python compilation film, And Now for Something Completely Different, the comedy team learned that an audience won't keep laughing past the 50-minute mark if it doesn't care for the characters or become involved in a story. But the writers and producers behind The Simpsons Movie didn't need a warm-up film to learn that lesson: They created a classic screwball comedy right off the bat. This 90-minute carnival of a film contains more thrills and laughs than any combination of clowns, creep shows and animal acts.

'Hannah Montana' scores at the box office Miley Cyrus and alter ego Hannah Montana have double-teamed their way to another No. 1 box-office debut. Walt Disney's Hannah Montana: The Movie opened with $34 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday. That followed Cyrus' first-place premiere last year with her 3-D concert film. The movie is a big-screen installment of the Disney Channel series about an ordinary teen living a double life as a pop star. Hannah Montana drew $17.3 million on Friday for the biggest opening day ever for a G-rated live-action movie.

Vivian has a big problem -- or more accurately, two big `D problems.They're between her neck and her waist, and they're driving her crazy. It's 1976, she's a teen-ager, and her breasts are taking over her life.Or, at least, she thinks they are. The daughter of an unsuccessful businessman who keeps moving the family from place to place, Vivian has enough to worry about without also having to deal with lustful males.That "Slums of Beverly Hills" spins something charming and original from this dubious premise is due not only to the lightly comic touch of writer/director Tamara Jenkins but also to the film's quirkily charismatic star, Natasha Lyonne.

The death watch continues for "My So-Called Life."Despite a groundswell of fan support and new life on MTV, the struggling ABC coming-of-age drama is a long shot to make the fall lineup, says co-executive producer Marshall Herskovitz. The network will decide "Life's" fate by mid-May."I'd say it's 60-40 against us being renewed," says Mr. Herskovitz, 43. "This show has been so near death for so long in so many ways, we're used to it. We're fatalistic about it. We waited 18 months to get on the air at all. ABC ordered episodes in dribs and drabs."

Want some TV news that doesn't involve O. J. Simpson, except by example? Then tune tonight to CBS, which devotes its entire three-hour block of prime time to a special "CBS Reports" on violence in America. Elsewhere, the evening's other most notable event is on ABC, where "My So-Called Life" makes its last appearance before going on its so-called hiatus.* "My So-Called Life" (8-9 p.m., Channel 2) -- In a year of excellent new dramatic series, this ABC drama is one of the best of them all, and deserves a long life on TV. Yet after tonight, it vanishes until the network rules on its future in April.