Entertainment

"That's Entertainment, 1995," a variety show sponsored by the Volunteer Auxiliary of Howard County General Hospital, is going to be an outrageously hilarious blast, says Alicia Slahetka, who is coordinating the show.The variety show, featuring song, dance, comedy and Broadway-style entertainment, will be at 7:30 p.m. April 29 at Centennial High School."People will not believe the talent we have brought together," Ms. Slahetka says. The show will be directed by Janet Gordon, a member of the Capitol Steps.

Los Angeles -- As if the line between entertainment and news were not blurred enough, E! Entertainment Television yesterday announced that it will offer gavel-to-gavel live coverage of the O. J. Simpson trial with former CBS correspondent and weight-loss pitch-woman Kathleen Sullivan anchoring.The cable channel's coverage will pre-empt all programming except commercials from noon to 8 p.m. daily once the trial starts, according to Fran Shea, E!'s senior vice president for programming.Shea said E!

IT'S NO surprise that a Glen Burnie banquet hall is the site of political fund raisers, bull roasts and wedding receptions. But Michaels Eighth Avenue is also staging boxing matches and rock concerts because demand exists for these activities.Last night, Michaels hosted a 20-match boxing card for the Arbutus Boxing Club. Last month, the catering hall featured a Megadeth rock concert that attracted hundreds of young spectators. Other eclectic activities, from kick boxing matches to murder mysteries, will take place at this venue.

THE TURNAROUND David Cordish has produced at the Power Plant is quite astonishing. Less than a year after he was given control of the failed Inner Harbor amusement complex, Mr. Cordish has it fully leased with entertainment uses never before seen in this town.The latest tenant signed is the ESPN Grill, a prototype sports eatery the cable operator and Walt Disney Co. will unveil next spring and hope to duplicate throughout the nation.It may not be evident yet, but the whole character of the Inner Harbor tourism district is changing.

To quote a certain vice president, this week in entertainment was a big f---ing deal. Here's your pop culture week in review. 'THE HILLS' FINAL SEASON STARTS IN APRIL: It's the last chance to give Heidi and/or Spencer a best leading douchebags in a fake reality show Emmy. ROAD TRIP!: Universal Orlando's The Wizarding World of Harry Potter opens June 18. Just a few months left to convince my editor there's a story down there. 'TODAY' REPORTS ON BEST ACTRESS OSCAR CURSE: It's not that we think you have "journalistic standards," but we sadly expected more from you, "Today."

WASHINGTON -- The belated apology to General Motors by NBC for rigging a truck crash demonstration by installing an incendiary device does little to resolve the serious journalistic questions raised by the incident.Ever since the advent of television, the newspaper business has been obliged to come up with new approaches to survive the competition. The pressure has produced more use of color, charts and other visual allures, and all manner of new features about what has come to be called "lifestyle."

He gave us the word "Jumbo" and the phrase "Greatest Show on Earth." He made a superstar out of Tom Thumb, a midget in a soldier's uniform, and brought a European singer to our shores and made her a sensation as the Swedish Nightingale.P. T. Barnum may have been American entertainment's first larger-than-life figure. An expert at figuring out what the people wanted and then giving it to them, he was even better at turning the process around: taking what he had and convincing people that was what they wanted to see.A&E's "P. T. Barnum," a two-part miniseries from Hallmark Entertainment airing tomorrow and Monday nights, is much like its subject.

When the recording industry's legal team sued Jammie Thomas, a single mother of two in Minnesota for allegedly pirating music over the Internet from her home computer, it relied on intelligence gathered by a small Baltimore-area company that has built itself into the digital sleuth of the entertainment world: SafeNet Inc. With the ability to track down computers around the world that have illegally downloaded the latest George Clooney movie or Britney Spears...

WE HAVE come full circle. More than 100 years ago, audiences were held rapt by the first films of the French Lumiere brothers - a locomotive grinding into a station or parents feeding their baby - and by those of Thomas Alva Edison - a man sneezing or a couple robustly bussing. Simple quotidian gestures. This summer, audiences were held rapt by 16 people scavenging about a tropical island or 10 strangers trying to coexist in a California prefab. Maybe not exactly everyday life, but not high drama, either.

LAS VEGAS - This is the year, technology executives believe, that the personal computer takes over the living room. Last week at the Consumer Electronics Show, the world's biggest technology convention, top industry leaders said computers are becoming cheap and user-friendly enough for most households to manage. Add to that the fact that most music and video is digital. Executives believe that those trends have made computers better able to entertain consumers than traditional machines such as televisions and hi-fi speaker systems.