Several trade reporters attending the Cannes Film Festival observed that Blindness, the, er, dark film that opened the festival Wednesday night, will need to garner some favorable reviews if it is to become successful at the box office when it opens in September. It has received none so far. Daily Variety noted that the film was "applauded at its gala screening, though not wildly so." The trade paper's reviewer, Justin Chang, wrote that Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles may have turned out a "slickly crafted drama" but that the tale by Nobel laureate Jose Saramago "emerges on screen both overdressed and undermotivated, scrupulously hitting the novel's beats yet barely approximating, so to speak, its vision." Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter commented that while the film may be provocative cinema, "it also is predictable cinema: It startles but does not surprise." Fionnuala Halligan, writing for Britain's Screen Daily, said that "Meirelles never illuminates convincingly the wrenching fear of his source material." Derke Malcolm, writing in the London Daily Mail concluded that the film, "though palpably sincere, is often both repetitive and dull." And Peter Howell in the Toronto Star remarked that the film commands "more respect than love" and predicted that it "won't be a guaranteed multiplex rouser."

Analysts are sharply divided over whether New Line's Sex and the City: The Movie will benefit from or be hurt by its avid female fan base, the Los Angeles Times observed today (Thursday). "It's easier to find $2-a-gallon gas than a straight man eager to see the movie," the Times commented. On the other hand, some thirtysomething women "are organizing ladies' night viewing parties" around the film. While some analysts are forecasting an opening weekend of around $40 million, others are predicting a figure of half that amount. A lot depends on whether younger women (the film is rated R, so the very young are excluded from screenings) join their elders at the multiplex, the Times suggested, noting that interest among that group is growing.

Warren Cowan, whose Rogers and Cowan public relations company has represented many of Hollywood's leading luminaries and the music industry's best-selling recording artists over more than a half century, died Wednesday of cancer at age 87. His clients included Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Gene Kelly, John Wayne, Lucille Ball, Judy Garland, Steve McQueen, Cary Grant, Sylvester Stallone, Ronald Reagan, The Doors, Elton John, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Michael Jackson.

Nine-year-old Australian actress Jordana Beatty, selected just three weeks ago to play the title role in Eloise in Paris, has already made her first promotional appearance. On Tuesday Beatty arrived at New York's Plaza hotel, where the famous portrait of Eloise, taken down during the hotel's recent refurbishment, was rehung outside the Palm Court restaurant. The Plaza, the setting for Kay Thompson's Eloise novels (six-year-old Eloise lived on the top floor), reopened Sunday after undergoing three years of renovations that turned the hotel's original 805 rooms into 282 hotel rooms and 181 condominiums. Production of the movie -- presumably the hotel will have a role -- is due to begin in August.

The Screen Actors Guild has agreed to return to the bargaining table on May 28, or perhaps earlier, following the presumed conclusion of current negotiations between the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. SAG officials are due to provide members with an update on their position on the remaining issues facing the negotiators at a "town hall" meeting on Monday.

CBS, the only network that continues to show notable success with sitcoms -- its Monday night comedy lineup routinely beats the competition -- plans to add a second night of sitcoms on Wednesdays next season. Worst Week will augment Monday's comedy schedule. (Ironically the show is being produced by NBC Universal Television; NBC turned it down.) The Wednesday-night shows include Project Gary, starring Jay Mohr, and the returning The New Adventures of Old Christine. TV columnist Lisa De Moraes noted in today's Washington Post that the recent writers' strike may have been a factor in CBS's decision to ramp up its comedies. "They tend to do things like come back from strikes stronger than dramas, probably because with virtually no continuing story line, no plot momentum is lost during three-month shutdowns," she wrote. The network is also adding three new dramas, including another show based on a British hit, Eleventh Hour. The other shows are The Mentalist, about a cop who uses intuition to solve cases, and The Ex List, about a woman who is told by a psychic she must find her future husband among the men she has dated in the past or be doomed to remain single for the rest of her life.

Fringe, a new sci-fi drama from J.J. Abrams of Lost fame, and The Inn, a comedy starring onetime child star Jerry O'Connell (Stand by Me), are set to make their debut on Fox in the fall season, the network said Wednesday. Its hit 24 will also be returning in 2009, along with its other hit lineup that made Fox the top-rated rated network this season, including the unscripted shows American Idol, The Moment of Truth and Hell's Kitchen and dramas House and Bones.

In a move that lifts it into the forefront of Internet publishers, CBS has agreed to acquire CNET Networks for about$1.8 billion in cash -- representing a 45-percent premium over CNET's current share price. In a statement, CBS chief Les Moonves said, "There are very few opportunities to acquire a profitable, growing well-managed Internet company like CNET Networks. ...CNET Networks will add a tremendous platform to extend our complementary entertainment, news, sports, music and information content to a whole new global audience."

Seventeen-year-old David Archuleta and 25-year-old David Cook are the last two contestants still standing following the elimination of 21-year-old Syesha Mercado from the American Idol finals Wednesday night. The final contest is set to take place next Tuesday, with the winner to be announced the following night. Ratings for the show continued to show significant erosion from a year ago as it posted a rating of 15.5 and a 23 share, representing 26.4 million viewers. Earlier in the evening the contest between contests on CBS and NBC ended in a virtual draw as CBS's The Price Is Right Million Dollar Spectacular attracted 7.00 million viewers, while the first hour of NBC's Deal or No Deal drew 7.08 million. At 9:00, CBS pulled solid numbers with Criminal Minds opposite Idol, corralling 12.6 million viewers.

Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who represented the Al Gore team during the 2004 Florida recount, has denounced the HBO drama Recount, scheduled to air on May 25. In an interview with today's (Thursday) New York Times, Christopher said that he had asked to see a script of the film before production began but never received one. After reviewing a transcript provided by the Times, Christopher said that he was stunned. "Much of what the author has written about me is pure fiction," he said. "It contained events that never occurred, words I never spoke and decisions attributed to me that I never made." Bill Daley, Gore's campaign chairman, who said that the filmmakers agreed to make changes in the script about his role in the recount, called the depiction of Christopher "absolute fantasy." Even James Baker, the chief Republican adviser at the time, who is depicted in the film as outsmarting Christopher at every turn, commented, "I don't think I was as ruthless as the movie portrays me, and I know he was not as wimpish as it makes him appear." Screenwriter Danny Strong, who interviewed the three men, acknowledged that he decided not to send Christopher the script "because I didn't feel that he was being totally candid in our interview." Meanwhile, the drama is getting some solid reviews. Syndicated columnist Liz Smith called it "one of the most viscerally powerful, fast-moving, literate, magnificently acted roller-coaster rides ever put on-screen."

In an astounding concession by U.K. public officials, police and prosecution authorities have agreed to pay the producers of a TV documentary $200,000 to settle a libel suit and apologize to them in court. West Midlands police and the Crown Prosecution Service had accused the producers of editing their documentary, Undercover Mosque, to "completely distort" the comments of British imams appearing in it, filmed with hidden cameras. (One imam was seen remarking, "As for the Jews, you kill them physically." Another praised the beheading of a British soldier, saying, "The hero of Islam is the one who separated his head from his shoulders.") The officials also sent their complaints about the program, produced by Hardcash Productions for Channel Four, to OFCOM, Britain's broadcasting regulator. It dismissed the complaints, calling the documentary "a legitimate investigation." The producers then sued sued the officials for libel.