On the eve of this year's Sundance Film Festival (Jan. 18-28), festival director Geoffrey Gilmore is arguing that it may be time to alter the definition of independent films. In an interview with the London Independent newspaper, Gilmore observed that in the past, "American independent cinema was always defined as cinema having no resources, no actors of note, no technology, but those are boundaries that are no longer relevant." He noted that one of the films entered in this year's festival, Donnie Darko, employs remarkable special effects to tell a story about a teenager who moves through time portals to save his loved ones. (It was produced by Drew Barrymore.) Gilmore added that as a result of new digital technology, "what we'll see over this next decade is not a continuation of American independent cinema as we have seen it before, but a reinvention of that form... let's allow independent films to become what they want to be, not what they [critics] think they should be."

At a ceremony that might only have been staged in France, fashion designer Pierre Cardin reminisced about once making love to Jeanne Moreau as he introduced the actress, who Thursday became the first woman member of France's Beaux Arts Academy. Speaking to a star-studded audience at Moreau's induction into the academy, Cardin remarked "Is there a better reason to exist?" as he reminisced about how their love making occurred in the same Venice hotel room that novelist George Sand and poet-playwright Alfred de Musset had occupied in 1834. (The literary couple both became seriously ill, Sand fell in love with her physician, and de Musset returned home alone.)

The Australian box office last year experienced its first decline in 13 years. As reported by today's (Friday) Sydney Daily Telegraph, the 2.1 percent drop was attributed to a slowdown in multiplex construction and the impact of the Olympic Games. Some Aussie theatergoers, however, attributed the decline to a boost in ticket prices. The leading three films for the year, according to the Australian Motion Picture Distributors Association were Gladiator (starring Australian Russell Crowe), Mission: Impossible 2 and -- a surprise -- the kids film Stuart Little. Australian films accounted for 7.8 percent of the total gross, twice the share for 1999.

The Indian government attempted to assure the nation's filmmakers on Thursday that the arrest of a prominent Bollywood investor because of alleged ties to organized crime represented an isolated case and not part of a larger crackdown on the film industry. The Times of India commented that the government was trying to "avert any panic about a concerted action against film financiers."

Today's (Friday) Toronto Star offers a review of the trailer for the Lord of the Rings first episode, the Fellowship of the Ring, which begins screening tonight. Critic Peter Howell notes that the trailer lasts a scant one minute and 46 seconds. The first half, he writes, is "more teaser than crowd pleaser, " but the second half "is so exciting it could easily become hobbit-forming. The camera whizzes past scenes guaranteed to rock the multiplex, including a fight with warriors clad in that trendy green that everybody is wearing these days. There's a close-up of a fearsome King Lear type ... who has a pained expression like that of any theater owner who doesn't get to show this money-maker next December."

Three new films opening this weekend appear to pose little threat to several of the movies now in current wide release and others that are expanding. AntiTrust takes a drubbing from virtually every major critic, but surprisingly -- given its subject matter -- not from The Wall Street Journal's Joe Morgenstern, who calls it a "clever paranoid thriller" and "a lament, in comic-book terms, for the fate of intellectual property in an age of corporate megavores." On the other hand, Jonathan Foreman in the New York Post calls the movie, "an inferior factory product, cranked out with little care and less imagination, that seems all the dumber because it's pretending to be smart and topical." Rita Kempley in the Washington Post refers to it as "a cliché-riddled, techno-babbly psycho-thriller." A.O. Scott in the New York Times says that it's "overloaded with twists and not very jolting surprises." And The Toronto Star's review, written by Peter Howell, says it all in its headline: "This flick needs a reboot."

Most critics seem to agree: Save the Last Dance isn't worth saving. Sort of pleasant, though, they indicate. Chris Vognar in The Dallas Morning News calls it "a perfectly adequate and fairly forgettable teen date movie ... mushier in the middle than an Oreo cookie." Elvis Mitchell in The New York Times describes it as "tailor-made" for teenagers: "It's a decaf iced frappaccino, a confection that won't upset the stomachs of its target audience: the young crowd perched on the edge of pubescence and not quite prepared for the autumnal sophistication of, say, a Freddie Prinze Jr. movie." But Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times awards it three stars, writing: "The setup promises clichés, but the development is intelligent, the characters are more complicated than we expect, and the ending doesn't tie everything up in a predictable way."

Double Take would appear to be one of those low-budget comedies that are rarely screened for critics. That this one was may have been a mistake. Just about no one has anything favorable to say about it, although comedians Eddie Griffin and Orlando Jones receive good marks for trying. "This ham-handed dud" is the way New York Daily News critic Jami Bernard describes it. "It's a sticky mess of culture and politics, " writes Gary Thompson in the Philadelphia Daily News. Elvis Mitchell in the New York Times writes that the movie "steals chunks from so many other pictures that it's like watching the surveillance tapes of shoplifters at a Seven-11." But Chris Vognar in the Dallas Morning News pays Double Take the ultimate left-handed compliment: "It's a movie for viewers who can't be bothered with such niceties as logic, story arch, characters, direction and pace. It is an impressive achievement of ineptitude. If Ed Wood were alive, he'd love it."

The AOL-Time Warner merger bounded over its final regulatory hurdle Thursday when the FCC conditionally approved the $106-billion deal. The majority of the commission insisted that the company open AOL's next generation of instant-messaging service to rivals, but two Republican members dissented, maintaining that no conditions should be attached to the merger. In fact, some of AOL's rivals had fought for additional conditions. Microsoft, Excite@Home and AT&T had each wanted the FCC to force AOL to open its existing instant-messaging service. While their cause was backed by Commissioner Gloria Tristani, the commission -- Tristani included -- decided in the end to limit its provisions to the advanced messaging services that AOL has designed for the future, including video conferencing, music swapping, and interactive TV. Time Warner Chairman Gerald Levin will be CEO of the new company, while AOL founder Steve Case will be its chairman. [Late Thursday, AOL posted a "hyperlinked" headline on its Welcome Page headlined "Chairman Steve Case talks about the merger and what's ahead." Clicking on the headline brought up the message: "The HTTP request was in an invalid format or contained invalid data. ... Contact the server administrator."]

CBS is likely to take in more than $200 million in ad revenue on Super Bowl Sunday, Jan. 28, the Wall Street Journal reported today (Friday). The newspaper said that the total includes revenue from the Super Bowl game itself (at $2.4 million per spot) as well as earnings from the pregame show and the first episode of the new Survivor series. CBS has already boasted that its take will be the most ever earned by any network on a single day.

The debut of Temptation Island on Fox Wednesday night scored an 11.5 rating and a 16 share, to put the habitually last-place major network in second place for the night. Temptation Island also wound up in second place during its 9:00 p.m. time period among all viewers but captured first place among adults 18-49. (More than 16 million tuned into the show, about half a million more than tuned in to the first episode of Survivor last summer.) NBC, however, continued to hold the lead for the night, as an episode of Law and Order pulled a 15.2 rating and a 23 share. ABC was in third place with a 9.1/13, while CBS remained a distant fourth with a 6.9/10.

Turner Broadcasting's beleaguered wrestling league, World Championship Wrestling (WCW), has been acquired by Fusient Media Ventures for an undisclosed figure. Fusient is headed by Brian Bedol, founder of Classic Sports Network, which later became part of Disney's ESPN. Once a dominant wrestling organization, WCW has been outmatched by Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and is believed to have lost about $80 million last year.