Warren Beatty

"Mickey One" is a runaway movie and a wild curiosity. It's a gorgeous, infuriating American art film from an era when our best moviemakers tried to take the pulse of the nation rather than merely guess the emotional weight of their next-door neighbors. It's weirdly exhilarating to see it on the same screen at the Charles where "mumblecore" and other minimalist aesthetics sometimes rule. Instead of kitchen-sink comedy-drama, it gives us everything- including -the-kitchen-sink comedy-drama.

"Mickey One" is a runaway movie and a wild curiosity. It's a gorgeous, infuriating American art film from an era when our best moviemakers tried to take the pulse of the nation rather than merely guess the emotional weight of their next-door neighbors. It's weirdly exhilarating to see it on the same screen at the Charles where "mumblecore" and other minimalist aesthetics sometimes rule. Instead of kitchen-sink comedy-drama, it gives us everything- including -the-kitchen-sink comedy-drama.

ON AND OFF THE AIR:* Hmmm. Is actor Warren Beatty floating some trial political balloons?The star of "Bugsy" muses that he would consider going into public office, "but I certainly wouldn't do so with glee," as part of a show premiering this weekend on basic cable's E! Entertainment Television network.Oddly enough, however, in the "E! Saturday Special" appearance (at 8 p.m. tomorrow), Beatty is at England's Oxford University, participating in a question-and-answer session with students."It's not a nice life now to run for public office," he says, but if someone decided "I would be the most appropriate person to run, I guess I would have to do it."

"Mickey One," this week's oddly riveting revival choice at the Charles, carries the name of a production company, Tatira, that would never be credited again. It was a company that the movie's star, Warren Beatty, set up for this one movie. He named it for his mother, Kathlyn, nicknamed Tat, and his father, Ira Beaty (just one t). They brought their kids up in Virginia. But they actually met in Lutherville. Yes, the same suburb that gave us John Waters can also claim some ownership of Warren Beatty.

Hollywood is into a gangster-film cycle. We seem to be getting one a week, and none, until now, has been that good.The newest, "Bugsy," is very good. It is the story of Bugsy Siegel, the gangster who had Hollywood cowering back in the '40s. He had somehow managed to control the craft unions and was blackmailing the studios until someone shot him dead at his girlfriend's home.Baltimore's Barry Levinson, who directed the film, doesn't concern himself with the studio business. All he is interested in is Bugsy's beginnings in New York, then his move to the West Coast where he picked up with Virginia Hill, a Hollywood starlet.

SINCE ARIANNA Huffington floated the idea of a Warren Beatty presidential campaign two weeks ago, the actor's ambitions have been the summer's most delectable political story. Jokes abound. Whom, for example, would President Beatty hire as his intern?The 62-year-old Beatty has stayed virtually silent, but his friends are encouraging speculation. "Warren has been consulting with Democratic and Reform Party activists," they say. "Warren is taking this very seriously."Wife Annette Bening, they report, is enthusiastic.

In the scorchingly funny political satire "Bulworth," Warren Beatty is a man possessed, a holy fool tilting at the windmills of contemporary political culture, an idiot worthy of Dostoevsky, whose compulsive, vulgar pronouncements take on the proportions of greatness the more he blathers on.Love "Bulworth" or hate it. Laugh at it or moan out loud. But by all means see it, and celebrate the fact that a mainstream movie has been made in which something of real meaning is at stake.Beatty -- who wrote, directed and produced -- also stars in the title role of Jay Bulworth, a Democratic senator from California who is just days away from a shoo-in re-election.

"Mickey One," this week's oddly riveting revival choice at the Charles, carries the name of a production company, Tatira, that would never be credited again. It was a company that the movie's star, Warren Beatty, set up for this one movie. He named it for his mother, Kathlyn, nicknamed Tat, and his father, Ira Beaty (just one t). They brought their kids up in Virginia. But they actually met in Lutherville. Yes, the same suburb that gave us John Waters can also claim some ownership of Warren Beatty.

THE KIND offer of Warren Beatty to consider serving his nation as president should not go unappreciated.Confiding to a reporter that he might run for the Democratic nomination to compensate for others' inadequacies, Mr. Beatty comes from the proud tradition of Hollywood film stars who sacrifice career for public service. Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee comes to mind, as well as Representatives Sonny Bono and Helen Gahagan Douglas and Sen. George Murphy -- all of California -- and, of course, President Ronald Reagan.

Anthony Hopkins is the runaway winner among SUNDIAL respondents' choice for best actor in this year's Academy Awards. Warren Beatty came in dead last.Hopkins' portrayal of Hannibal ''the Cannibal'' Lecter in ''The Silence of the Lambs'' received 135 votes over the weekend. Nick Nolte (''The Prince of Tides'') was a distant second with 59 votes, followed by Robert De Niro (''Cape Fear'') with 45 votes, Robin Williams (''The Fisher King'') with 37 votes and Beatty (''Bugsy'') with 31."It's Your Call" represents a sampling of opinions from certain segments of the community, but it is not balanced demographically as would be done in a scientific public opinion poll.

Series The Big Bang Theory: : Penny (Kaley Cuoco) develops a rivalry with a sexy new neighbor (Valerie Azlynn). (8 p.m., WJZ-Channel 13) Chuck: : A heartless agent is sent to evaluate Sarah's (Yvonne Strahovski) performance as Chuck's (Zachary Levi) handler after he reveals his feelings about her. (8 p.m., WBAL-Channel 11) House: : A man (Mos Def) awakens in a New York hospital after a bicycle accident, unable to move or communicate. (8 p.m., WBFF-Channel 45) Greek: : As a new season gets under way, Casey (Spencer Grammer)

THE MOB BOX -- Sony / $34.95 / More than the underworld connects the movies in The Mob Box, due out Tuesday. Barry Levinson had a hand in producing 1991's Bugsy (which he also directed) and 1997's Donnie Brasco (which Mike Newell directed, 10 years before Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire). In Donnie Brasco, a solidly acted, stolidly written, real-life crime saga, Johnny Depp plays an FBI agent who goes undercover as a jewel broker. In the facetious Brit "laddie" film/gangster film Snatch (2000)

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. - Glitz and Gephardt seldom appear in the same sentence. But they shared a Hollywood stage the other night, when House Democratic leader Richard A. Gephardt, a terminally square politician with a Boy Scout image, joined Barbra Streisand at a $6 million gala. The concert, billed as the most lucrative event in the history of the party's House campaign committee, raised money for the final weeks of the Democratic drive to win back the House of Representatives and make Gephardt the speaker.

As if. Britney Spears -- the new Madonna? The longer the teen queen sticks around, the more she garners comparisons to the 43-year-old pop diva. On the surface, the analogy seems to work: Both are female superstars who earned their names with suggestive dance music and provocatively choreographed videos. But that's about as far as you can reasonably stretch it -- despite the best efforts of Spears herself, whose new album, Britney, seeks to establish her as a grown-up career artist a la Madonna.

Once again, the giant Hollywood star machine has labored mightily and coughed up a mouse - or at best, Warren Beatty in a polar bear suit. He's cute in the suit, like a baggy-pants version of the polar bears in the yuletide Coca-Cola commercials. He should have played the whole picture that way. For Beatty doesn't have a naturally engaging comic spirit. He didn't in those duds everyone has forgotten, like "The Fortune," or in the one no one will forget, "Ishtar," or even in his fading-from-memory hit, "Heaven Can Wait."

For all the uproar that Spike Jonze's campaign video for Al Gore has created, one would think that this is the first time a Hollywood director has ever plied his trade in the service of Washington's myth-making machinery. In fact, politicians have used up-to-the-minute media to burnish their image at least as far back as the cave drawing at Lasceaux, which no doubt only slightly exaggerated the hunting prowess of that community's Alpha Male (or a candidate for Alpha Male). From those ancient glyphs to classical painting and sculpture to Mathew Brady's Civil War-era photographs, politicians have always wooed the premiere artists of the day to help get their faces - or, more important, their right faces - in the public eye. Abraham Lincoln was only half-joking when he admitted that Brady's iconic portrait helped him win the White House.

As if. Britney Spears -- the new Madonna? The longer the teen queen sticks around, the more she garners comparisons to the 43-year-old pop diva. On the surface, the analogy seems to work: Both are female superstars who earned their names with suggestive dance music and provocatively choreographed videos. But that's about as far as you can reasonably stretch it -- despite the best efforts of Spears herself, whose new album, Britney, seeks to establish her as a grown-up career artist a la Madonna.

Warren Beatty and Annette Bening expecting child early 0) next yearWarren Beatty and his girlfriend, Annette Bening, are expecting a child next year. Mr. Beatty, 54, and Ms. Bening, 33, met last year while filming "Bugsy," which is due to be released at Christmas.A terse statement by the couple said: "We are happy to confirm we are looking forward to the birth of a child early next year."It will be a first child for Mr. Beatty, who has never married but has romanced some of Hollywood's most glamorous women, and for Ms. Bening, who stars opposite Harrison Ford in "Regarding Henry".

SINCE ARIANNA Huffington floated the idea of a Warren Beatty presidential campaign two weeks ago, the actor's ambitions have been the summer's most delectable political story. Jokes abound. Whom, for example, would President Beatty hire as his intern?The 62-year-old Beatty has stayed virtually silent, but his friends are encouraging speculation. "Warren has been consulting with Democratic and Reform Party activists," they say. "Warren is taking this very seriously."Wife Annette Bening, they report, is enthusiastic.

THE KIND offer of Warren Beatty to consider serving his nation as president should not go unappreciated.Confiding to a reporter that he might run for the Democratic nomination to compensate for others' inadequacies, Mr. Beatty comes from the proud tradition of Hollywood film stars who sacrifice career for public service. Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee comes to mind, as well as Representatives Sonny Bono and Helen Gahagan Douglas and Sen. George Murphy -- all of California -- and, of course, President Ronald Reagan.