Laura Linney

Two actors on top of their game and an old-guard director anxious to show he's still got it combine to make "Love Letters" a television event not to be missed, a rare chance to see a literate, character-driven play handled lovingly on the small screen.The actors are Steven Weber and (especially) Laura Linney, both utterly convincing as the staid, risk-averse child of privilege and the free spirit he's loved since both were kids. But theirs is no conventional romance; instead, it's carried out largely through the mail, as the two characters go away to school, work on their careers and marry other people.

LOS ANGELES - Skywalker's lightsaber going to the auction block Luke Skywalker's lightsaber from Star Wars, Indiana Jones' hat and whip from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Batman's cowl from Batman Begins are going on the auction block. The iconic movie items are for sale as part of Profiles in History's Hollywood auction, to be held Dec. 11 at the company's headquarters in Calabasas, Calif. The lightsaber is expected to sell for at least $150,000. Other items featured in the auction include C3PO's helmet, a complete set of Harry Potter books signed by J.K. Rowling, a three-volume collection of The Lord of the Rings signed by J.R.R.

Real experience gets played as farce and then replayed as soap opera in The Nanny Diaries, which wants to be a "you'll laugh, you'll cry" kind of movie but is more like "you'll snicker, you'll doze." The heroine, Annie Braddock (Scarlett Johansson), is a would-be anthropologist who initially fantasizes that she can be a real-life Mary Poppins to a tyke named Grayer (Nicholas Art). His parents, cleverly referred to only as Mr. and Mrs. X (Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney), get caught up in a marital Armageddon and leave all the child care to Annie.

History might be made on two fronts tonight at the Emmys. While much has been written about either AMC's Mad Men or FX's Damages having a chance to become the first basic cable series to win as best drama, even more compelling is the possibility that HBO's John Adams could be the most honored program in TV history before the night ends. The historically sound and dramatically dazzling miniseries about the life of America's second president won eight Emmys last week at the Creative Arts portion of the competition and needs only three more tonight to tie Angels in America, the 2003 HBO miniseries based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play about AIDS, and the 1976 ABC production Eleanor and Franklin, a made-for-TV movie about the life of President Franklin Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor.

Reality wounds but also heals in The Savages, writer-director Tamara Jenkins' cuttingly funny-sad family drama about a college-teacher brother, Jon Savage (Philip Seymour Hoffman), his unproduced playwright sister, Wendy (Laura Linney), and their father, Lenny (Philip Bosco), who has lapsed into Parkinson's dementia. Samuel Johnson said, "When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." One tragedy of dementia is that it scatters its victims' focus.

LOS ANGELES - Skywalker's lightsaber going to the auction block Luke Skywalker's lightsaber from Star Wars, Indiana Jones' hat and whip from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Batman's cowl from Batman Begins are going on the auction block. The iconic movie items are for sale as part of Profiles in History's Hollywood auction, to be held Dec. 11 at the company's headquarters in Calabasas, Calif. The lightsaber is expected to sell for at least $150,000. Other items featured in the auction include C3PO's helmet, a complete set of Harry Potter books signed by J.K. Rowling, a three-volume collection of The Lord of the Rings signed by J.R.R.

Who, or what, is the Mothman? That's one of many questions never fully answered in The Mothman Prophecies. This supernatural thriller from director Mark Pellington almost sinks under the weight of too many red herrings, but is rescued by a skewed sense of reality and pervasive sense of dread that should keep audiences from dwelling on them. John Klein (Richard Gere, as always without a hair out of place) is a Washington Post reporter on a happy streak: Not only is his career going great, but he's just made a steal of a deal to purchase a new house.

NEW YORK / / It's hard making the transition from child star to adult roles in a way that can be taken seriously. Jodie Foster is the gold standard of how to do it right as an actress. As a director, Ron Howard is many kid stars' role model. The list of those who did not succeed is staggeringly long. Two child stars are attempting to make the crossover with help from the Tribeca Film Festival, which ends today, in films whose themes are so adult that no one will ever doubt that they're not kids anymore.

SHUT UP & SING -- The Weinstein Co. / $28.95 "Shut Up & Sing" is what many country fans told the Dixie Chicks after lead singer Natalie Maines proclaimed, on the eve of the Iraq war, that she was ashamed that President Bush came from Texas. But Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck's movie about the group's subsequent three-year journey from country-music limbo to Taking the Long Way, their five-Grammy-winning album, could be called Awake and Sing. It makes you feel the way AM-radio addicts did when folk singers slid into rock and every music category exploded.

After 11 years, NBC's Frasier ended its acclaimed run last night with Dr. Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) quoting Tennyson to his Seattle radio audience and then flying off to Chicago in pursuit of a woman named Charlotte (Laura Linney) whom he had met just three weeks ago. Along the way were a birth, a wedding, low farce and some of the most highly intelligent sitcom writing prime time network television is ever likely to see. Final episodes of long-running series are almost impossible to craft, and this one had its flaws.

Interviewing Laura Linney, the female lead of The Savages, brings back the feeling of talking about plays or books with the keenest girl in the drama club. Over the phone from New York, she laughs easily when describing and analyzing acting. She's able to view even her own roles with a bracing, selfless objectivity that increases her enjoyment of her work. Bring up a recent favorite moment - the dance she falls into with Robin Williams in Barry Levinson's Man of the Year - and she proclaims, "That was fun."

Reality wounds but also heals in The Savages, writer-director Tamara Jenkins' cuttingly funny-sad family drama about a college-teacher brother, Jon Savage (Philip Seymour Hoffman), his unproduced playwright sister, Wendy (Laura Linney), and their father, Lenny (Philip Bosco), who has lapsed into Parkinson's dementia. Samuel Johnson said, "When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." One tragedy of dementia is that it scatters its victims' focus.

Real experience gets played as farce and then replayed as soap opera in The Nanny Diaries, which wants to be a "you'll laugh, you'll cry" kind of movie but is more like "you'll snicker, you'll doze." The heroine, Annie Braddock (Scarlett Johansson), is a would-be anthropologist who initially fantasizes that she can be a real-life Mary Poppins to a tyke named Grayer (Nicholas Art). His parents, cleverly referred to only as Mr. and Mrs. X (Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney), get caught up in a marital Armageddon and leave all the child care to Annie.

SHUT UP & SING -- The Weinstein Co. / $28.95 "Shut Up & Sing" is what many country fans told the Dixie Chicks after lead singer Natalie Maines proclaimed, on the eve of the Iraq war, that she was ashamed that President Bush came from Texas. But Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck's movie about the group's subsequent three-year journey from country-music limbo to Taking the Long Way, their five-Grammy-winning album, could be called Awake and Sing. It makes you feel the way AM-radio addicts did when folk singers slid into rock and every music category exploded.

NEW YORK / / It's hard making the transition from child star to adult roles in a way that can be taken seriously. Jodie Foster is the gold standard of how to do it right as an actress. As a director, Ron Howard is many kid stars' role model. The list of those who did not succeed is staggeringly long. Two child stars are attempting to make the crossover with help from the Tribeca Film Festival, which ends today, in films whose themes are so adult that no one will ever doubt that they're not kids anymore.

After 11 years, NBC's Frasier ended its acclaimed run last night with Dr. Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) quoting Tennyson to his Seattle radio audience and then flying off to Chicago in pursuit of a woman named Charlotte (Laura Linney) whom he had met just three weeks ago. Along the way were a birth, a wedding, low farce and some of the most highly intelligent sitcom writing prime time network television is ever likely to see. Final episodes of long-running series are almost impossible to craft, and this one had its flaws.

Interviewing Laura Linney, the female lead of The Savages, brings back the feeling of talking about plays or books with the keenest girl in the drama club. Over the phone from New York, she laughs easily when describing and analyzing acting. She's able to view even her own roles with a bracing, selfless objectivity that increases her enjoyment of her work. Bring up a recent favorite moment - the dance she falls into with Robin Williams in Barry Levinson's Man of the Year - and she proclaims, "That was fun."

History might be made on two fronts tonight at the Emmys. While much has been written about either AMC's Mad Men or FX's Damages having a chance to become the first basic cable series to win as best drama, even more compelling is the possibility that HBO's John Adams could be the most honored program in TV history before the night ends. The historically sound and dramatically dazzling miniseries about the life of America's second president won eight Emmys last week at the Creative Arts portion of the competition and needs only three more tonight to tie Angels in America, the 2003 HBO miniseries based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play about AIDS, and the 1976 ABC production Eleanor and Franklin, a made-for-TV movie about the life of President Franklin Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor.

Who, or what, is the Mothman? That's one of many questions never fully answered in The Mothman Prophecies. This supernatural thriller from director Mark Pellington almost sinks under the weight of too many red herrings, but is rescued by a skewed sense of reality and pervasive sense of dread that should keep audiences from dwelling on them. John Klein (Richard Gere, as always without a hair out of place) is a Washington Post reporter on a happy streak: Not only is his career going great, but he's just made a steal of a deal to purchase a new house.

Two actors on top of their game and an old-guard director anxious to show he's still got it combine to make "Love Letters" a television event not to be missed, a rare chance to see a literate, character-driven play handled lovingly on the small screen.The actors are Steven Weber and (especially) Laura Linney, both utterly convincing as the staid, risk-averse child of privilege and the free spirit he's loved since both were kids. But theirs is no conventional romance; instead, it's carried out largely through the mail, as the two characters go away to school, work on their careers and marry other people.