Longest Yard

Chris Rock, who has been called "racist," "dangerous" and "the funniest man in America," recently seemed like the "most exhausted man in Los Angeles." With a Miami-Washington basketball playoff game playing on the TV in his hotel room -- between interviews for his new film The Longest Yard (opening tomorrow) -- Rock lurched through some questions, 3,000 miles from his New York base. ("L.A. is `town,'" he said, "like, you go to `town' to get supplies. Then you go home.") Prolonging his day, and agony, was freelance writer John Anderson.

Orioles@Brewers 8 p.m. [MASN2] Radhames Liz, who has pitched well for the Orioles since being called up from the minors this month, gets his fourth start. Veteran Jeff Suppan is scheduled to start for the Brewers, who have won four straight. Movie The Longest Yard 8 p.m. [TNT] This is the remake, in which Adam Sandler is in the Burt Reynolds role as the inmate quarterback, although Reynolds is in the 2005 remake as the coach. It's tough to follow a classic.

ST. LOUIS - This city got a small but real taste of Hollywood in 2000 when one of its favorite sons, rapper Nelly, snagged a key role in the little indie flick Snipes. At the St. Louis premiere, Nelly rolled up in a blue Bentley and strolled down the red carpet escorting his mother, Rhonda Mack. Other red carpet arrivals included several St. Louis Rams, including Marshall Faulk, and the Snipes cast and crew. Turns out, you ain't seen nothing yet. Last week, the red carpet was rolled out again for the local premiere of The Longest Yard.

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Remember "The Longest Yard" (1974)? It starred Burt Reynolds in one of his best efforts, as a convict who quarterbacks an inmate team against a squad of prison guards.The plot of "Necessary Roughness," now shooting in Texas, sounds suspiciously similar.There were familiar gridiron faces in "The Longest Yard," and there will be more in "Necessary Roughness." Recruited for the project have been Roger Craig, Earl Campbell, Tony Dorsett, Ed "Too Tall" Jones, Dick Butkus, Jim Kelly, Jerry Rice and Ben Davidson.

TELEVISION 1.CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CBS 2.Desperate Housewives, ABC 3.Lost, ABC 4.Without a Trace, CBS 5.Grey's Anatomy, CBS FILMS 1.Flightplan, Disney 2.Serenity, Universal 3.Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, Warner Bros. 4.A History of Violence, New Line 5.Into the Blue, Sony SINGLES 1.Gold Digger, Kanye West featuring Jamie Foxx 2.Shake It Off, Mariah Carey 3.Photograph, Nickelback 4.Like You, Bow Wow featuring Ciara 5.My Humps, Black Eyed Peas ALBUMS 1.All Jacked Up, Gretchen Wilson 2.Wildflower, Sheryl Crow 3.Most Known Unknown, Three 6 Mafia 4.Libra, Toni Braxton 5.Late Registration, Kanye West DVDS (SALES)

Orioles@Brewers 8 p.m. [MASN2] Radhames Liz, who has pitched well for the Orioles since being called up from the minors this month, gets his fourth start. Veteran Jeff Suppan is scheduled to start for the Brewers, who have won four straight. Movie The Longest Yard 8 p.m. [TNT] This is the remake, in which Adam Sandler is in the Burt Reynolds role as the inmate quarterback, although Reynolds is in the 2005 remake as the coach. It's tough to follow a classic.

Chris Rock, Adam Sandler and Burt Reynolds took part in a media conference yesterday to promote the remake of The Longest Yard, the 1974 film that is considered one of the best sports movies. Reynolds starred in the original, about a football game between inmates and guards at a Southern prison. Personally, I'm waiting for Smokey and the Bandit: The Twilight Years. Commissioner Paul Tagliabue opened his State of the NFL address yesterday with the rhetorical question, "Why are we in Jacksonville?

If you felt secure in your belief that you had seen the last of Burt Reynolds, you are not a student of history. In his three-decades-plus career, Reynolds has worked in two modes: everywhere and nowhere. Well, we are now in the Ubiquitous Burt half of the cycle. Indeed, Reynolds has made a career of comebacks. A star on the Florida State University football team, he was drafted by the Baltimore Colts. Before he joined the team, though, an injury ended his sports career. Comeback No. 1: He moves to New York to launch an acting career, which leads to TV gigs and his breakout role in the 1972 movie Deliverance.

LOS ANGELES - A talking lion became king of the box office as the animated tale Madagascar climbed to the No. 1 spot with $28.7 million in its second weekend. At No. 2 was Adam Sandler's football remake The Longest Yard, which took in $26.1 million in its second weekend. That left third place to Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, which grossed $26 million in its third weekend, according to studio estimates yesterday. Madagascar, featuring the voice of Ben Stiller as a zoo lion returned to the wild, debuted at No. 2 a week earlier and took over first-place from Revenge of the Sith, which had held the top spot for two weekends.

If you felt secure in your belief that you had seen the last of Burt Reynolds, you are not a student of history. In his three-decades-plus career, Reynolds has worked in two modes: everywhere and nowhere. Well, we are now in the Ubiquitous Burt half of the cycle. Indeed, Reynolds has made a career of comebacks. A star on the Florida State University football team, he was drafted by the Baltimore Colts. Before he joined the team, though, an injury ended his sports career. Comeback No. 1: He moves to New York to launch an acting career, which leads to TV gigs and his breakout role in the 1972 movie Deliverance.

LOS ANGELES - War of the Worlds conquered the box office as easily as the movie's aliens overpowered Earth, but it did not have enough firepower to overcome Hollywood's prolongued box office slump. Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise's sci-fi tale took in $77.6 million over the long Fourth of July weekend, lifting its total since debuting Wednesday to $113.3 million, according to studio estimates yesterday. That fell well short of the all-time high held by Spider-Man 2, whose $180.1 million haul in its first six days led Hollywood to a record Fourth of July weekend last year.

LOS ANGELES - A talking lion became king of the box office as the animated tale Madagascar climbed to the No. 1 spot with $28.7 million in its second weekend. At No. 2 was Adam Sandler's football remake The Longest Yard, which took in $26.1 million in its second weekend. That left third place to Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, which grossed $26 million in its third weekend, according to studio estimates yesterday. Madagascar, featuring the voice of Ben Stiller as a zoo lion returned to the wild, debuted at No. 2 a week earlier and took over first-place from Revenge of the Sith, which had held the top spot for two weekends.

ST. LOUIS - This city got a small but real taste of Hollywood in 2000 when one of its favorite sons, rapper Nelly, snagged a key role in the little indie flick Snipes. At the St. Louis premiere, Nelly rolled up in a blue Bentley and strolled down the red carpet escorting his mother, Rhonda Mack. Other red carpet arrivals included several St. Louis Rams, including Marshall Faulk, and the Snipes cast and crew. Turns out, you ain't seen nothing yet. Last week, the red carpet was rolled out again for the local premiere of The Longest Yard.

Brainless fun" was the men's-room consensus after a promo screening for The Longest Yard. But is that a diagnosis or a rave? It takes mere minutes for this remake of 1974's hit action comedy to detach the thinking part of your brain from the rest of your nervous system. I laughed at the dumb, grotesque gags. I also thought, "This is how Pavlov's dog must have felt." The filmmakers base the physical humor solely on the idea that pain is funny when it visits someone else. There's nothing graceful about it. In both Robert Aldrich's original version and this new one from Adam Sandler's frequent collaborator, Peter Segal (Anger Management)

Chris Rock, who has been called "racist," "dangerous" and "the funniest man in America," recently seemed like the "most exhausted man in Los Angeles." With a Miami-Washington basketball playoff game playing on the TV in his hotel room -- between interviews for his new film The Longest Yard (opening tomorrow) -- Rock lurched through some questions, 3,000 miles from his New York base. ("L.A. is `town,'" he said, "like, you go to `town' to get supplies. Then you go home.") Prolonging his day, and agony, was freelance writer John Anderson.

LOS ANGELES - War of the Worlds conquered the box office as easily as the movie's aliens overpowered Earth, but it did not have enough firepower to overcome Hollywood's prolongued box office slump. Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise's sci-fi tale took in $77.6 million over the long Fourth of July weekend, lifting its total since debuting Wednesday to $113.3 million, according to studio estimates yesterday. That fell well short of the all-time high held by Spider-Man 2, whose $180.1 million haul in its first six days led Hollywood to a record Fourth of July weekend last year.

Chris Rock, Adam Sandler and Burt Reynolds took part in a media conference yesterday to promote the remake of The Longest Yard, the 1974 film that is considered one of the best sports movies. Reynolds starred in the original, about a football game between inmates and guards at a Southern prison. Personally, I'm waiting for Smokey and the Bandit: The Twilight Years. Commissioner Paul Tagliabue opened his State of the NFL address yesterday with the rhetorical question, "Why are we in Jacksonville?