Julia Roberts

WELCOME BACK TO This Just In, brought to you by Tostitos, and recently named the official morning newspaper column of the new millennium. If it's OK with everyone out there, I'd like to pick up where we left off -- with a little La-La from the Land of Pleasant Living. Yes! It's another Julia Roberts sighting! (I can't help it, friends. Eddie Querzoli, my first city editor, told me long ago: "Names is news, kid, names is news.")Roberts and co-star Richard Gere were in Riderwood yesterday for more work on "Runaway Bride," the romantic comedy from Lakeshore/Paramount directed by Garry Marshall.

When it's really bubbling, Charlie Wilson's War brings Broadway fizz to D.C., Houston and Cairo cocktail parties. It keeps you curious and amused for 97 minutes. But like many a cocktail party, it has an upside and a downside. It might refresh you after ponderous events or "event films" - but still leave you longing for more long-lasting experiences. It stars Tom Hanks, almost back to loose, wisecracking form, as a sybaritic East Texas congressman who uses his connections and committee positions to wangle funding for the Afghan rebels during the Soviet invasion.

DYING YOUNG'' plays a little like Bette Davis' ''Dark Victory.'' It also has touches of ''Educating Rita'' and ''Pretty Woman,'' one of Julia Roberts' previous films.Its trouble is that it doesn't play as well as any of those films. The actors are personable, the direction is steady, but the movie, a four-ply weeper, is one of those by-the-number things with nary a surprise.It also lacks cuteness, which a movie of this sort needs. A film as predictable as this one is seriously in need of scenes that stand out, scenes that give the movie a little life, no pun intended.

SO, shall we expect to see Tom Cruise, his business partner Paula Wagner, Robert Redford and Meryl Streep yukking it up in costume and singing silly songs, in the wake of the disappointing opening of Lions for Lambs? Well, Miss Streep has just completed the movie version of Broadway's Mamma Mia! so there are colorful clothes and ABBA tunes galore in her future. I don't know that Tom, Paula or Redford are quite so lucky. They all had a lot of high hopes riding on Lions for Lambs, it being the initial Cruise/Wagner project out of their United Artists deal, and it is Redford's first directorial effort in seven years.

ACTRESS Julia Roberts made the waiters and busboys swoon Sunday night at Sotto Sopra. She's in town for movie business, of course. Roberts is due to co-star with Richard Gere in "Runaway Bride," already in production. Her director, Gary Marshall, supped at Sotto, along with about 100 cast and crew. (Gere wasn't there.) The pony-tailed "Pretty Woman" was down-to-earth sweet, said Maurizio Pinto, the restaurant's general manager. "She came into the kitchen and served some pizza to her friends, pushing through the crowd with the pizza, very nicely saying, 'Excuse me, excuse me.' She was very nice, very classy.

Julia Roberts promised this week there would be no repeat performance of her walkout when she last went to make a film in England -- "unless I get fired."Ms. Roberts was speaking before shooting starts today on the reported $25 million-plus TriStar Pictures production of "Mary Reilly" at Pinewood Studios and in Edinburgh, co-starring John Malkovich and directed by Stephen Frears."The whole thing didn't work out," said the actress of "Shakespeare in Love," her ill-fated first British project.

It was like having an audience with the Pope. We waited, about 10 reporters, in a room at the Mark Hotel in New York. After a time, Jason Patric walked in, sat down for a short time at the speaker's table, got up and went out.Was the interview already over? Is this all he was going to do, walk in, say nothing then leave?No. He returned, and we didn't ask why he had come in, left, then returned. We didn't ask a lot of things about the man because it was one of those interviews in which the participating reporters knew what questions they were not supposed to ask.We were not supposed to ask, for instance, about Julia Roberts.

HOLLYWOOD -- Producers Lili and Richard Zanuck, coming off their Oscar-winning "Driving Miss Daisy," had a lot riding on "Rush," the story of two Texas narcotics agents swallowed up by the lifestyle they set out to combat. They had, after all, paid $1 million for the rights to Kim Wozencraft's first novel. And Hollywood skeptics came out in full force when the Zanucks announced that it would be Lili's directorial debut.Casting 25-year-old Jason Patric, a talented up-and-comer without proven box-office appeal, upped the ante even more.

Let us now praise simple stories well told. "Erin Brockovich" is so disarmingly, deceivingly straightforward that it's almost jarring. Even more surprising, this unassuming movie comes from Steven Soderbergh, who has lent style and narrative complexity to such films as "Out of Sight" and "The Limey." Through the intrinsic power of his central character, brought to life by Julia Roberts, in her meatiest role and most accomplished performance yet, he has created the most unexpected movie of a career devoted to counter-intuitive turns: a mainstream Hollywood star vehicle.

Call it the quest to dress Julia.Several bridal companies are vying to see whether Julia Roberts will wear one of their gowns in the movie "Runaway Bride," now being filmed in Maryland.At the request of set decorators for the film, David's Bridal in Glen Burnie recently lent nearly 30 dresses with corseted waists, tulle skirts and Cinderella styling by Oleg Cassini, Gloria Vanderbilt and other designers.But it appears that Amsale, a high-end bridal line in New York, has edged out the more moderately priced David's.

LOS ANGELES --Erin Brockovich has a famous name, Hollywood good looks, an agent and a new cause: Medicare. The one-time legal assistant, whose environmental crusade against a utility company inspired a hit movie starring Julia Roberts, has lent her name as plaintiff in lawsuits against several California hospitals and convalescent homes. The suits allege that the defendants pocketed millions in taxpayer dollars while covering up their own mistakes. Her seven lawsuits, filed last week in Los Angeles Superior Court, are among dozens filed across the country targeting health care providers but using other plaintiffs, her lawyer said.

They say the streets of Hollywood are paved with stardust, but one stretch can claim more than its share. The Hollywood Walk of Fame, a sidewalk shrine to the immortals of the entertainment industry, draws an estimated 10 million stargazers annually from all over the world. Nearly 2,300 five-pointed medallions radiate underfoot from the fabled crossroads of Hollywood and Vine, paying tribute to celebrities big and small. Onlookers sometimes puzzle over unfamiliar names or notice the absence of a favorite marquee topper.

Bilingual workshop on buying a home set for Saturday Baltimore's Hispanic Liaison Office will hold a bilingual homebuying workshop next weekend. The session will include information about financing options, government incentives and the procedures involved in buying a home in Baltimore. Real estate professionals will provide information and answer questions. The workshop will be the fourth held by the liaison office. It is aimed at increasing homeownership by Hispanics. The event is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. to noon Saturday at St. Patrick's Church hall, 1728 Bank St. Information or registration: Lorena Beltran, 410-545-6532.

BARBARA A. MIKULSKI calls herself independent. Yet when the Maryland Democrat was called upon last week to buck her party's leadership and allow the Senate to take up legislation to curb abuse of class-action lawsuits, Ms. Mikulski buckled. She said she wanted the Senate to keep talking about the measure, but what she did was prevent it from coming to the floor for debate. The mostly Republican sponsors of the bill fell one short of the 60 they need to break the Democrats' filibuster. So another year likely will go by without federal steps to rein in trial lawyers who game the legal system for their own enrichment at the expense not only of deep-pocket defendants but also the economy at large.

The appeal of star power and sure-handed direction rarely has been more evident than in Ocean's Eleven, a remade caper film starring some of Hollywood's most beautiful people working under filmdom's hottest director. The handsome faces -- George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Julia Roberts -- don't exactly break a sweat in the film, but they have a good time and let it show. And hot-shot du jour Steven Soderbergh is coming off a year in which he not only won an Academy Award for directing Traffic, but also beat himself (he also was nominated for Erin Brockovich)

LOS ANGELES - George Clooney sighed and sat back with his boots up on the table near the end of a long day of interviews. "Clark Gable wasn't doing 150 media outlets," he said. Clooney wasn't complaining. He was merely illustrating the off-screen demands on the modern leading man. The Friday opening of Ocean's Eleven, the A-listed remake of the 1960 Rat Pack caper movie, will put his on-screen magnetism to the test after a relatively private year. According to his Ocean's Eleven co-stars, he's up to the task.

Is one Julia Roberts movie a summer enough?This is just one question raised by "Runaway Bride," a frothy trifle in which Roberts sort-of-almost reprises her role in "Notting Hill," the deserved romantic comedy hit of the summer. Not that the part she plays here has much in common with the glamourpuss she played in the earlier film. But the underlying persona -- a strong, independent woman searching for commitment with just the right unlikely guy -- is exactly the same.In the Roberts Summer Sweepstakes, "Notting Hill" wins the day for charm, breezy humor and decadent escapism, even though "Runaway Bride" certainly has its moments in all three departments.

Fans of old Hollywood movies live in hope - and usually in vain - for a male-female team with the oomph and durability of Hepburn and Tracy or O'Hara and Wayne. Since most films these days are designed as single-star vehicles, the balance typically isn't there and the possibilities elicit boredom or derision. This spring, the romantic hit of the season was "Bridget Jones's Diary," a showcase for Renee Zellweger with Hugh Grant and Colin Firth in supporting roles. Occasionally you get a Richard Gere willing to step back and showcase a Julia Roberts ("Pretty Woman," "Runaway Bride")

There Julia Roberts was on Oscar night, regally ascending the stairs to the stage as the world watched -- when all of a sudden her beau Benjamin Bratt rushed up, adjusted the train of her Valentino gown and scurried back to his seat. This scene at last month's awards ceremony was significant -- and not just because Roberts won the Best Actress Oscar. Just as important was the fact that as Roberts was poised to rule the world for her few allocated minutes, the public witnessed Bratt being only too happy to perform the role of a supportive, albeit less-accomplished, boyfriend.