Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post calls 3000 Miles to Graceland "two hours to disgraceland." He goes on: "What you get is the V trifecta: vile, vicious and violent. Oh, and incoherent and stupid. A mess. A mean-spirited completely worthless film that can never give back the two hours it seizes from you. Other than that, I liked it a lot." Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times liked it just as much: "Here's a movie without an ounce of human kindness, a sour and mean-spirited enterprise so desperate to please, it tries to be a yukky comedy and a hard-boiled action picture at the same time." Elvis Mitchell in the New York Times calls the film a "bloated spectacle" while Liam Lacey in the Toronto Globe & Mail remarks that it "is remarkably bad, burdened with a tone of self-congratulatory stupidity and the rancid smell of middle-aged star vanity." (The film stars Kevin Costner and Kurt Russell.) "If there were a truth-in-titling law," comments Carrie Rickey in the Philadelphia Inquirer, "the movie would be called 3000 Bullets to Brain Death."

Talking about Monkeybone, starring Brendan Fraser, Bridget Fonda and Whoopi Goldberg, on Good Morning America, Joel Siegel remarked, "Tuesday afternoon. I got back from the screening. Somebody asked if I liked the movie. Exact quote: 'This is the worst movie I've seen in a year that didn't star John Travolta or Sylvester Stallone.'" Most newspaper critics appear to agree. Peter Howell in the Toronto Star goes out of his way to find some redeeming value in the film. He writes: "The utterly mirthless Monkeybone, a movie made out of fart gags, sex jokes and cheap rubber costumes, may not be entirely without merit. This failed attempt at comic fantasy could be used by future film historians -- assuming they could endure viewing it -- as a useful case study of how badly a single movie can squander talent and experience." Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, at least, gives the film an A for effort: "The movie labors hard, the special effects are admirable, no expense has been spared, and yet the movie never takes off; it's a bright idea the filmmakers were unable to breathe life into."

3,000 Miles to Graceland and Monkeybone, the two new films being given a wide release this weekend, are described as "the double-feature from hell" by Good Morning America film critic Joel Siegel. And indeed, rarely have two new films, released simultaneously, been so universally savaged by critics. If the critics' judgment is shared by moviegoers, the two films will be dead meat for Hannibal at the box office this weekend.

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a brief supporting the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in its legal battle with hacker magazine/Web site 2600 over publication of the DVD security code known as DeCSS, designed to prevent DVDs from being copied. Last August a federal judge made permanent an injunction barring Eric Corley, who operates 2600, from posting the code on his Web site or linking to other sites that do. In its brief, the government urged a federal appeals court to uphold the ruling, citing the need to protect copyrighted material, particularly on the Internet.

Former New Line marketing chief Mitch Goldman announced Thursday that his Premiere Market and Distribution Group has secured the backing to enable it to distribute films in the U.S. and Canada "on a scale comparable to major studio theatrical releases." As reported by the online entertainment magazine Inside, Premiere plans to guarantee producers a minimum of 2,000 screens and $15 million to cover prints and initial advertising. Goldman indicated that Premiere will not be going into the business of producing its own films or distributing internationally.

An Australian review board has overridden a decision by the country's official ratings board and has toughened the rating for Hannibal. The board set aside the MA 15+ rating originally established for the movie -- which allows children under 15 to see it if accompanied by an adult, or anyone 15 and older to see it without restriction. Instead, it imposed an R 18+ and ordered that the film's ads contain the notice that it is "unsuitable for anyone under 18 years by virtue of its depictions of high impact violence and the need for an adult perspective." Mike Selwyn, managing director of UIP, which distributes the film in Australia, told the Sydney Morning Herald that the review board's decision was "extremely unfortunate." He noted that Hannibal "has been seen by conservatively 600, 000 to 700, 000 people in Australia and there has been absolutely no public outcry."

Despite the Eminem controversy, massive promotions on Viacom siblings MTV and VH1, and performances by top-selling musical acts, Wednesday's three-hour Grammy telecast failed to lure a significantly larger audience than it had in the past. In fact, overall viewership declined to 26.7 million from 27.8 million a year ago. However, the number of 18-34-year-olds who tuned in increased by about 8 percent from last year. Analysts attributed the so-so showing to stiff competition: NBC offered new episodes of The West Wing and Law & Order. ABC vied with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and Fox countered with Temptation Island. Nevertheless, CBS won the night with a 19.0 rating and a 27 share. NBC was well behind, but produced a solid 11.5/17. Fox placed third with a 7.4/11, while ABC wound up fourth with a 7.2/10.

NBC has set March 19 for the debut of First Years, a weekly drama about a group of first-year law students in San Francisco. The show will replace the Monday edition of Dateline NBC in the 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. hour. Based on a hit British series, the show is being executive-produced by Jill Gordon, whose previous credits include My So-Called Life and The Wonder Years.

ABC's Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows is being greeted with the kind of thunderous applause from critics that once greeted Garland herself. Eric Mink in today's (Friday) New York Daily News calls the miniseries, airing Sunday and Monday, a "stunning triumph" and hails the "wizardry" of the entire production team. Linda Stasi in the New York Post concludes her review this way: "If you're a Garland fan, you'll be in a coma of happiness from watching this, and if you aren't -- and I'm not -- you'll still be glued to the set. Or I was anyway." And Caryn James in the New York Times says that the miniseries "does something rare, restoring humanity to an icon."

XFL advertisers, who have not been delivered the minimum audience they had been promised, will receive "make goods, " XFL president Basil DeVito Jr. has promised. (The term "make goods" was not used by DeVito, although it is a common term used in the industry.) In a statement, DeVito said: "We are working proactively with our advertisers to live up to our guarantees. We are providing them with commercials to deliver the audience which we promised in advance." He also insisted that "every advertiser with the exception of one has been satisfied" with the telecasts. The exception, presumably, is Honda, which has pulled its ads from the telecasts.

Bette Midler may not return for a second season of her CBS sitcom, regardless of whether CBS decides to pick it up, FoxNews.com's Roger Friedman reports, citing Bonnie Bruckheimer, who is partnered with Midler in All Girls Prods. Echoing some of Midler's own recent remarks on late-night talk shows about the difficulty of turning out a weekly sitcom, Bruckheimer told Friedman, "You have to have a new script every Monday morning! Do you know how hard that is? It's impossible."

An Indian consumers group has urged the Indian government to tax game shows like Kaun Banega Crorepati?, (Who Wants to Be a Millionaire) "notwithstanding whether any person succeeds in such program or not." As reported by today's (Friday) Times of India, the group, Mumbai Grahak Panchayat, observed that if such a show offered a prize of one crore rupees ($215, 000) each week and a five percent tax were imposed on that amount, the annual income to the government could be $2.2 million. "Thus, a single game show like KBC can give the government handsome revenues," the group noted. Such a tax was justified, it argued, because simple questions are often asked on the game shows simply to attract viewers. Meanwhile, the newspaper reported in a separate article that KBC continues to attract such huge audiences that it has drawn crowds away from movie theaters and resulted in a huge drop in the production of Bollywood films.

Michael Jackson has barred television coverage of his address at Oxford University on March 6, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported today (Friday). The newspaper indicated that even print reporters may not be allowed inside the Oxford Union debating chamber where Jackson's speech will take place. The Guardian said that Jackson is using the appearance to launch his Heal the Kids charity in the U.K.