The crime drama We Own the Night is getting mostly so-so reviews from critics. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times writes somewhat unenthusiastically that "the film is made with confidence and energy and is well acted by the principals." But Jack Mathews in the New York Daily News comments that the plot quickly "goes wrong" and "turns into something barely at the level of a TV cop show." Liam Lacey in the Toronto Globe and Mail takes a middle position. "For most viewers, the film will probably be a trade-off," he writes. "Some clichéd plotting is balanced by some splendid set-pieces." Or as Peter Howell puts it in the rival Toronto Star: "It's not that it's so terrible, but it is terribly similar to so many other police dramas at the movies and on TV."

Critics are removing a bit of the sheen from Elizabeth: The Golden Age, starring Cate Blanchett in the title role, or as Manohla Dargis remarks in the New York Times, "as David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust period." Dargis writes that the movie is "reductive, distorted and deliriously far-fetched, but the gowns are fabulous." Likewise, Joe Morgenstern comments in the Wall Street Journal,"When you see Cate Blanchett in one fantastical gown after another, you understand why Elizabeth's reign was golden." But that may be one of the problems of the film, Roger Ebert observes in the Chicago Sun-Times. The movie, he writes, "is weighed down by its splendor. There are scenes where the costumes are so sumptuous, the sets so vast, the music so insistent, that we lose sight of the humans behind the dazzle of the production." Still, Blanchett receives a polite round of applause from critics for her performance. As Carrie Rickey writes in the Philadelphia Inquirer: "Blanchett commands the screen as she commands the royal navy. Her unforced majesty makes a so-so film worth watching."

Box office analysts are having a tough time figuring out which film is likely to come out on top this weekend. Several figure that the George Clooney starrer Michael Clayton, which opened in limited release a week ago, is likely to take the lead this week, despite the fact that it is likely to see a significant drop in the major cities where it played. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. distribution chief Dan Fellman said, "We have a very solid shot at (winning) the weekend, but it's certainly going to be a close race. I expect to be there at the finish line, but it's all up to the movie gods now." The strongest competition is likely to come from Sony's crime drama We Own the Night, starring Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix. Elizabeth: The Golden Age, starring Cate Blanchett, is likely to draw an older crowd, while Disney's The Game Plan, which dropped only 28 percent last week, could also remain among the top contenders.

Two significant verdicts on Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth have been delivered within 24 hours of one another. On Wednesday, a British judge ruled that the documentary on global warming, although "broadly accurate," contained errors and exaggerations that violated British laws intended to bar the promotion of political views in schools. On Thursday, Gore was announced as the co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, largely for his efforts to focus the world's attention on global warming with the film. In a statement today (Friday), Gore said, "The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level."

Two months before the scheduled release of New Line Cinema's The Golden Compass, the Catholic League has launched an all-out assault on the fantasy film. The League, the largest Catholic lay organization in the U.S., has produced a 25-page pamphlet, titled "The Golden Compass: Unmasked," that it is selling on its website for $5.00 per copy, which damns the film as a pernicious effort to indoctrinate children into atheistic beliefs. Acknowledging that the film itself is unlikely to contain offensive material, Catholic League President Bill Donohue said in a statement, "If unsuspecting Christian parents take their children to see the movie, they may very well find it engaging and then buy Pullman's books for Christmas. That's the problem. We are fighting a deceitful stealth campaign on the part of the film's producers." Pullman has acknowledged his anti-religious stance but critics have said that his books present little that is likely to offend believers. Stephen Whitty, critic for the Newark, NJ Star Ledger wrote Thursday that he had read C.S. Lewis' Narnia books, which contain Christian imagery while attending a Catholic parochial school as a child and later read them to his Jewish children. "But that doesn't mean that any of us accepted Lewis's Northern-Irish Protestantism as our own faith. ... I know, for example, that when my children saw The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe they saw absolutely no obvious Christian imagery in it. I am sure that, when we go to see The Golden Compass, they'll see no atheistic agenda either."

Setting the stage for a three-way war if a writers' strike occurs next month, the head of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) said Thursday that he'll sue the Writers Guild of America (WGA) -- which he called a "house of hate" -- if it follows through with its announced plan to bar members from working on animated features should a strike be called. IATSE regards animation production as its turf. But WGA East President Michael Winship observed that "honoring picket lines is a fundamental trade union principle." Jurisdictional disputes between IATSE and the WGA have been commonplace for years, particularly in recent times over reality shows, and it is unlikely that the two unions would show a united front against producers if the WGA does indeed go out on strike.

CBS said Thursday that it plans to carry both the Republican and Democratic conventions next summer in high-definition. Speaking at the SATCON/HD World show in New York, Mel Olinsky, CBS's director of bureau operations, called the development a major step for the network, noting that previously its only live news coverage in high definition had been a State of the Union address by President Bush. In an interview with Broadcasting & Cable magazine, Olinsky also disclosed that the network would probably be broadcasting the CBS Evening News With Katie Couric in high definition by the time the conventions get under way in August. He indicated that the network's goal is to have a new HD control room for the newscast operational by May.

TVLand.com is planning to stream full-length episodes of some of the classic television series that it airs on cable, including The Andy Griffith Show, Leave It to Beaver, Gunsmoke, Hogan's Heroes, and The Beverly Hillbillies. In a statement, TV Land President Larry W. Jones said that in addition to the reruns, the website will offer original programming aimed at the baby-boomer generation targeted by the cable network. "TVLand.com is evolving beyond classic TV into an entertainment destination targeting a generation," he said.

NBC, which has completely sidelined primetime news programming since the beginning of the season, said Thursday that it plans to air an interview with Idaho Senator Larry Craig next Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. The interview will be conducted by Today show host Matt Lauer and air under the banner Matt Lauer Reports, and additional coverage of the interview will be carried on Today on Wednesday. Previously Lauer has fronted features for Dateline NBC, which the network has shelved amid speculation that it is stockpiling episodes of the newsmagazine in advance of an expected strike by the Writers Guild of America, which could occur as early as November 1. (During the summer, NBC aired as many as seven hours of Dateline programs in a single week.)

ABC's Grey's Anatomy was the most TiVo'd show during the first week of the new season, Todd Juenger, head of TiVo Audience Research and Measurement, said Thursday. Grey's was followed by CBS's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, ABC's Desperate Housewives, and CBS's Survivor: China.While TiVo owners watched two-thirds of their programs on a time-shifted basis, Juenger observed, they switched to live coverage for sports coverage. NBC's Sunday Night Football was the least-TiVo'd telecast of the week.

Thursday night's tight ratings race wound up with CBS's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation once again dominating in the overall household category with a 12.3 rating and a 19 share. But ABC's Grey's Anatomy was close behind in the same 9:00 p.m. hour with a 12.1/18 and actually came out ahead among adult viewers 18-49. CBS led in every half-hour throughout the night among overall viewers, beginning at 8:00 p.m. with Survivor and ending at 10:00 p.m. with Without a Trace.