Box Office - "Parents" Met with Applause
US audiences are still gung-ho for Robert De Niro's new comedy Meet the Parents, about a fiance who tries to win the good graces of his future in-laws. The film finished in the top spot for the second week in a row. This was followed by the Denzel Washington drama Remember the Titans, then Lost Souls, and The Ladies Man. Rounding out the top five was The Contender from Rod Lurie. Two Toronto buzz films, Best in Show and Almost Famous are still among the top ten, tying for ninth place. Around the world, however, Hollow Man was the top film -- apparently not-so-hollow in Germany, Japan, and Italy -- where it garnered the top spot at box offices. In the UK, Dinosaur was less than extinct, finishing in first place, followed by The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps and Billy Elliot. In France, Hollow Man finished third spot, after Crimson Rivers (the top film of the week) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Spielberg Chooses his Dream Team
Steven Spielberg has his eye on Julia Roberts and John Cusack for his next film, The Doctor and the Doorman. A romantic comedy, the story centers on the lives of two unlucky lovers who meet at a wedding and lie about their respective situations, setting off a chain of hilarious misunderstandings. The couple, who crossed paths but never exchanged lines in Robert Altman's The Player, just might be the team Spielberg has been dreaming of to lead the film to the top of box office charts.

Slight Change of Costume for Mike Myers
Mike Myers will have to dig his frilly frocks out of the closet once again, this time to incarnate flamboyant fashion designer Yvesaac, a fictional version of real-life designer Isaac Mizhari. Adapted from Mizhari's comic book "The Adventures of Sandee the Supermodel," the plot centers on the adventures of the blond and bubbly Sandee and her discovery by Yvesaac in a bar in New York. Work on the project should be underway next year.

Don Quixote Shooting Underway
Shooting for the much awaited film adaptation of Don Quixote recently began in the environs of Madrid. Terry Gilliam is at the helm of this $32 million production starring Johnny Depp, Jean Rochefort and Vanessa Paradis. The strange and utopic world envisioned by Gilliam in such films as Brazil, The Fisher King and Twelve Monkeys will undoubtedly create the perfect ambiance for the unlikely meeting of Don Quixote (Rochefort) and cynical London advertising executive Toby Grosini (Depp).

Academy Screens In Cold Blood
In Cold Blood, the 1967 dramatization of the real-life murder of the Clutter family in Kansas, will be screened at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Friday, November 10, at 8 p.m., in the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. A reunion of some of the film's key cast and crew members will follow. Stars Scott Wilson and John Forsythe, cinematographer Conrad Hall (who received an Academy Award nomination for his work on the film), Quincy Jones (who wrote the film's Academy Award-nominated original music score) and assistant director Tom Shaw confirmed to participate. Tickets for the screening are $5 for the general public, $3 for Academy members. For more information, call 310-247-3600.

Tim Burton on the Web
Known for his fantastical universe and marginal approach, Tim Burton is continuing down the road less-travelled with an Internet cartoon based on characters from his 1998 book of fables, The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories. Several episodes, created entirely using Flash animation, tell the story of Stainboy and Staregirl and their strange and poetic world. The first six installments can be seen on the Shockwave site at www.shockwave.com.

Film Society Delivers Punch
The bell ringer of the San Francisco Film Society's extraordinary fall season will be Boxing Week, seven days of knockout fight films. This original series, created by the Film Society's Associate Director of Programming Rachel Rosen, presents classic features, documentaries, comedies, shorts and rediscovered gems. After five years of dreaming and planning, Rosen presented the schedule saying, "You don't have to like the sport of boxing to appreciate how many fantastic boxing movies there are. The number of recent movies about boxing are a great impetus for the Film Society to explore how boxing and film have been together since the dawn of movies and to showcase the wonderful range of ways boxing has been used in film. The lineup includes rare archival documentary footage, silent comedies with live music, boxing noirs from the forties, Japanese features and more recent American gems like Fat City and Raging Bull." Boxing Week will be launched with an exclusive Fight Night party at Bix Restaurant on October 30 to benefit the Film Society. For tickets ($150) call 415.561.5036.

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