"Give thy worst of thoughts, the worst of words" -- Othello. Some critics have obliged. These are John Anderson's in Newsday: "Bewildering, boring, devoid of motivation, incredulously acted." These are Bob Strauss's in the Los Angeles Daily News: "The movie is an abject lesson in just how far you can't go to make Shakespeare contemporary and relevant for teenagers." Some critics, to paraphrase a line from another Shakespearean play, are praising the film even as they bury it. Writes Jay Carr in the Boston Globe: "Talented young performers and a venturesome director throw themselves at Shakespeare's "Othello" with vigor, freshness, and conviction in O, but can carry this modernization only so far. The film collapses under the weight of the effort to shoehorn Shakespeare's story into a context that ultimately doesn't accommodate it." But the film is receiving a surprising number of raves -- particularly surprising since it was shelved for two years following the Columbine tragedy. (It is set on a high school campus and ends in violence.) Rita Kempley in the Washington Post calls the movie "a worthy, well-acted attempt to transform Shakespeare's Othello into a tragic touchstone for modern teens." Marc Caro in the Chicago Tribune defends the violent scenes that close the film and calls the production itself "serious-minded, non-exploitative." Likewise, Claudia Puig in USA Today remarks, "O is disturbing, but in all the right ways." And Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times concludes that O is "a good film for most of the way, and then a powerful film at the end, when, in the traditional Shakespearean manner, all of the plot threads come together, the victims are killed, the survivors mourn, and life goes on."

Critics, who rarely have anything nice to say about horror films, have bestowed a few pleasant words on Jeepers Creepers. Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post, for example, writes: "If the reptile brain in you, that ugly little cluster of cerebral cells where all the destructive urges lie, needs a good jolt, Jeepers Creepers offers you just such a treat without having to do hard time as a consequence." Mike Clark in USA Today comments: "Jeepers Creepers is no big-screen keeper, but it does survive its 40-minute test drive before turning into a lemon." Similarly Jonathan Foreman writes in the New York Post: "The first half-hour of Jeepers Creepers is so frightening that it's almost a relief when the movie subsequently collapses into silliness." And Gary Dowell in the Dallas Morning News concludes, "Although he slips occasionally, [director Victor] Salva has still crafted a fairly original and scarifying piece of work."

Also opening in limited re-release this weekend is a restored Funny Girl, starring Barbra Streisand. Kevin Thomas in the Los Angeles Times writes: "It is a superb example of Hollywood craftsmanship in which all elements have been blended to perfection with inspired artistry." And Jami Bernard in the New York Daily News pronounces the 1968 musical "the best movie playing in theaters right now."

With nothing much to lose during what is traditionally the worst holiday weekend of the year for the box office, the studios are releasing two R-rated movies squarely directed at teens -- the long-delayed O, a modern-day version of Othello set on a high-school campus, and the horror flick Jeepers Creepers. Analysts, by and large, are predicting that neither film will make much of an impression and are suggesting that American Pie 2 could become the first film of the summer to hold on to the top spot for four consecutive weeks. Meanwhile, Disney is rolling out Pearl Harbor once again, upping its screen count to 1,036 from last week's 116. It is hoping to push the film's total gross past $200 million from $195.5 million, where it currently stands.

Variety's editor in chief, Peter Bart, will be allowed to return to his job on Sept. 10 after a 21-day suspension without pay and will be required to attend "diversity training" after he returns. At the same time, Bart issued an apology saying that the quotes attributed to him in a recent cover story in Los Angeles Magazine in which he reportedly made disparaging remarks about blacks and gays, did not reflect his personal beliefs and values. "I am deeply sorry and regret that they offended anyone," he said in a statement. "It will not happen again." Tod Smith, president of the media division at Cahners Business Information, Variety's parent, said, that Bart "knows that he made a mistake." He added, "The company takes its values very seriously and expects all of its employees, no matter how prominent or distinguished, to set an excellent example." (The New York Post used a Variety-like headline for its story about Bart's return: "BIGS BACK BART.")

Meanwhile, the online entertainment magazine Inside reported Thursday that NAACP President Kweisi Mfume rejected a $100,000 donation proffered in a gesture to make amends for Bart's remarks. The magazine quoted Mfume as saying, "When they mentioned money being donated, I responded, 'Thank you, but no thanks.' ... We're not looking for money, we're looking for justice. We want fairness. The NAACP is not for sale." Mfume was clearly angered by the light penalty that the magazine meted out to Bart. "By failing to act decisively when confronted with these vicious remarks, Variety magazine has, in some respect, chosen to tolerate bigotry, with a slap on the wrist and a pat on the back," he told Inside. On the other hand, the magazine indicated, the Variety action was viewed as an overreaction by Rony Innis, chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality. "They're appeasing the hypersensitives [in the black community]." Innis said. "The fact that they are announcing their big penalty shows that they don't know how irrelevant and patronizing it is to black people."

Zenith Media, the media-buying unit controlled by France's Publicis Groupe, is predicting the worst turndown in ad buying in more than a decade. As reported by today's (Friday) London Financial Times, global advertising is expected to fall 2.6 percent in 2001; advertising in the U.S. is expected to plunge 4.2 percent. Zenith also lowered its predictions for ad spending on the Internet. "Until the Internet can demonstrate to national advertisers the ability to brand on the Web, the new medium will not experience significant growth," the report said. The report also blamed "the bursting of the dot-com bubble" as a significant factor in the advertising recession as a whole.

Five supporting cast members of Becker failed to report for work for the second day in a row Thursday after filing a breach-of-contract suit against Paramount. The five claim that they have been instrumental in making the show a hit and are demanding raises.

An Italian arts official has denounced the Venice Film Festival as "decadent" and an effort to maintain "a factitious, racist and snobbish leftist culture." As reported by Agence France Presse, the French news agency, on Thursday, Junior Culture Minister Vittorio Sgarbi and other members of the current Italian government were conspicuously absent from the opening gala for the festival. However, the AFP reported, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi -- the country's biggest media mogul in his own right -- is likely to attend the festival's closing ceremony on Sept. 8.

A court in New Delhi has barred cable operators throughout India from showing a film that is being released in theaters only today (Friday). Santoshi Productions had claimed that four cable Indian cable operators had obtained pirated copies of the Hindi film Lajja and were planning to show them on their network. According to the Times of India, a complaint filed by the filmmaker said in part, "Piracy of films has become a tool in the hands of the cable operators to increase their subscriber base."