Dustin Hoffman

Los Angeles -- Laughter is not something you expect from Dustin Hoffman, who probably shares with Robert De Niro the Serious Pre-eminent Actor of his Generation title, the mantle of successor to Brando and who, perhaps even more than these lofty predecessors, helped turn the scowl and various other forms of facial anguish into veritable art forms. His demeanor is as forbidding as his talent.This first becomes apparent when you watch how Mr. Hoffman, 54 now, enters a room and then interacts.

"The Kennedy Center Honors" is one of the nation's great TV treasures. And while this year's show is a little uneven, the high points still make it one of my favorite TV viewing experiences of the year. Maybe you have to be a little older to appreciate this annual production on some levels. If you grew up with TV in the 1950s and '60s, the golden age of variety shows hosted by such stars as Judy Garland and Danny Kaye, you can appreciate "Kennedy Center Honors" as the last, great variety show on television.

Los Angeles -- Fit and tan at 57, Dustin Hoffman is nonetheless starting to feel his age."As an aging movie star," he says, "I guess I've always been aware that there's been an element of, how much longer can I get away with this? And it's not unlike a hooker, in a sense that the public tires of having you in their bedroom."Which led the two-time Oscar winner to try on something new -- his first action-thriller. "Outbreak," loosely inspired by Richard Preston's best seller "The Hot Zone," stars Mr. Hoffman as an Army virologist desperately racing to contain a deadly virus that gruesomely devastates a small Northern California town.

HBO's horse-racing series Luck, starring Dustin Hoffman, came to an abrupt end Wednesday after the death of a third horse during filming earlier in the week. Here's the statement issued by HBO: It is with heartbreak that executive producers David Milch and Michael Mann together with HBO have decided to cease all future production on the series LUCK.   Safety is always of paramount concern.  We maintained the highest safety standards throughout production, higher in fact than any protocols existing in horseracing anywhere with many fewer incidents than occur in racing or than befall horses normally in barns at night or pastures.  While we maintained the highest safety standards possible, accidents unfortunately happen and it is impossible to guarantee they won't in the future.  Accordingly, we have reached this difficult decision.    We are immensely proud of this series, the writing, the acting, the filmmaking, the celebration of the culture of horses, and everyone involved in its creation.    Quote from Michael Mann and David Milch:  “The two of us loved this series, loved the cast, crew and writers.  This has been a tremendous collaboration and one that we plan to continue in the future.” When asked for clarification via email, an HBO spokeswoman said this is the end of "Luck.

There's nothing wrong with "American Buffalo" that a little energy wouldn't have cured. The movie version of the famed David Mamet play turns out to be a glum and dour meander through the slums of the American imagination.We're in what has so lately become a familiar neighborhood: small-time crime and the non-Rhodes Scholars who commit it and, more importantly, see it as a lifestyle. The geniuses-not at the center (and the edges and on top and below and every other conceivable location) of "American Buffalo" are pawnshop owner Don (Dennis Franz)

Dec. 21 1620 Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower went ashore for the first time at present-day Plymouth, Mass. 1967 The Graduate, with Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft, was released.

Elizabeth Taylor, whose work in raising funds to help fight AIDS is well known, tonight introduces a two-hour entertainment and informational AIDS special in which show business figures contribute time. "In a New Light," at 8 o'clock on WJZ (Channel 13), includes hosts Linda Lavin, Bruce Davison and Robert Guillaume, with appearances by stars, among many others, Carol Burnett, Dustin Hoffman, Sara Gilbert, Arthur Ashe, Christopher Reeve and Patti Lupone. The show includes documentary elements reporting on the latest medical research into the affliction.

Oprah Winfrey is about to take on Barbara Walters as queen of the celebrity specials at ABC.ABC will air at least four hour-long segments of "Oprah: Behind the Scenes," a series of prime-time interview specials, the network confirmed yesterday. Producer is Harpo Productions, Ms. Winfrey's Chicago-based company.First up, on May 19 during the ratings "sweeps": Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn on location of their new flick, "Death Becomes Her"; Dustin Hoffman on the set of his new movie, "Hero," and rocker Michael Bolton backstage at a concert.

Tiny and almost gingerbread-like on the outside, boundless on the inside, the titular toy store of Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium is indeed a magical place. A sort of organic, anthropomorphized FAO Schwarz, the emporium is redolent of simpler times with its emphasis on low-fi, nostalgia-inducing toys such as Slinky toys and Legos, along with plenty of other enchantments. A whir of activity and color, it beckons to young and old to surrender to their most innocent beliefs. The movie marks the feature directing debut of screenwriter Zach Helm (Stranger Than Fiction)

Watching The Lost City is like falling into a delirious dream on a marathon train ride only to be roused every 15 minutes by a conductor punching your ticket or barking out the next stop. Director Andy Garcia and screenwriter G. Cabrera Infante stick to their admirable purpose of portraying Cuba under President Fulgencio Batista in all its confusion and complexity. They don't reduce history to Castro's forces sweeping into Havana on Jan. 1, 1959, and ousting a monolithic dictator. These moviemakers strive for a nuanced portrait of bourgeois democrats struggling to fight Batista after his regime turns bloody and repressive, then finding themselves without a home in Castro's Cuba.

POP MUSIC Truckers tour Drive-By Truckers hail from Athens, Ga., and sport a sound that melds brash Southern hard rock with erudite lyrics. The band's style deepens on its latest album, the solid Brighter Than Creation's Dark, released early last year. The band performs tomorrow at Recher Theatre, 512 York Road, Towson. Tickets are $25. Call 410-547-7328 or go to ticketmaster.com. FILM 'Hook' The Rotunda Cinematheque is presenting a free showing at 10 a.m. Saturday of Hook, Steven Spielberg's 1991 movie about a grown-up Peter Pan (Robin Williams)

The Tale of Despereaux tells three fairy tales at once - none of them especially well or with any sort of rhythm or even much in the way of wit. Kids will get antsy, wondering why their favorite characters disappear for long stretches of the film, while adults will wonder just when this scattershot approach to storytelling will congeal into something resembling coherence. Sadly, it never really does. Despereaux, the title character, is a big-eared mouse who refuses to act like the other mice.

Dec. 21 1620 Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower went ashore for the first time at present-day Plymouth, Mass. 1967 The Graduate, with Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft, was released.

Tiny and almost gingerbread-like on the outside, boundless on the inside, the titular toy store of Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium is indeed a magical place. A sort of organic, anthropomorphized FAO Schwarz, the emporium is redolent of simpler times with its emphasis on low-fi, nostalgia-inducing toys such as Slinky toys and Legos, along with plenty of other enchantments. A whir of activity and color, it beckons to young and old to surrender to their most innocent beliefs. The movie marks the feature directing debut of screenwriter Zach Helm (Stranger Than Fiction)

Watching The Lost City is like falling into a delirious dream on a marathon train ride only to be roused every 15 minutes by a conductor punching your ticket or barking out the next stop. Director Andy Garcia and screenwriter G. Cabrera Infante stick to their admirable purpose of portraying Cuba under President Fulgencio Batista in all its confusion and complexity. They don't reduce history to Castro's forces sweeping into Havana on Jan. 1, 1959, and ousting a monolithic dictator. These moviemakers strive for a nuanced portrait of bourgeois democrats struggling to fight Batista after his regime turns bloody and repressive, then finding themselves without a home in Castro's Cuba.

WASHINGTON - The mystery surrounding one of America's most durable journalistic secrets was solved yesterday with the unmasking of an aging, retired FBI official as the anonymous Watergate-era source known as "Deep Throat." W. Mark Felt, 91, is quoted in a forthcoming magazine article as acknowledging that "I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat." The article, in the July issue of Vanity Fair, describes Felt, who suffered a stroke in 2001, as being in failing health with a "memory for details [that]

James Foley does a skillful job directing Confidence, but mostly he succeeds in turning a sow's ear into a pigskin wallet. This con-man extravaganza features a clean-cut grifter (Edward Burns) and his "too old to run, too young for San Quentin" gang (Paul Giamatti, Brian Van Holt) pulling a scam on a corrupt banker (Robert Forster) in order to pay off an L.A. kingpin they inadvertently swindled (Dustin Hoffman). Along the way, Burns enlists the services of a fleet-fingered party girl (Rachel Weisz)

The Tale of Despereaux tells three fairy tales at once - none of them especially well or with any sort of rhythm or even much in the way of wit. Kids will get antsy, wondering why their favorite characters disappear for long stretches of the film, while adults will wonder just when this scattershot approach to storytelling will congeal into something resembling coherence. Sadly, it never really does. Despereaux, the title character, is a big-eared mouse who refuses to act like the other mice.

When Barry Levinson's Wag the Dog was released in 1997, it benefited from some extraordinary timing. President Bill Clinton already was busy denying he'd been sexually involved with Paula Jones and had used Arkansas state troopers to both further and help cover up his relations with her. Within weeks of the film's December opening, the Monica Lewinsky scandal would break. And while all this was going on, the president was talking tough on Iraq, threatening the regime of Saddam Hussein with serious consequences if it kept on bullying its neighbors and interfering with U.N. weapons inspectors.

James Foley does a skillful job directing Confidence, but mostly he succeeds in turning a sow's ear into a pigskin wallet. This con-man extravaganza features a clean-cut grifter (Edward Burns) and his "too old to run, too young for San Quentin" gang (Paul Giamatti, Brian Van Holt) pulling a scam on a corrupt banker (Robert Forster) in order to pay off an L.A. kingpin they inadvertently swindled (Dustin Hoffman). Along the way, Burns enlists the services of a fleet-fingered party girl (Rachel Weisz)