Charlize Theron, a relatively obscure model and actress, is being deluged with praise for her performance as serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster. "What Charlize Theron achieves in [writer-director] Patty Jenkins' Monster isn't a performance but an embodiment," Roger Ebert comments in the Chicago Sun-Times."Ms. Theron drops all pretense of starlet beauty and locates the beast within her character," Chris Vognar observes in the Dallas Morning News. "Theron has rendered herself 100 percent unrecognizable," writes Desson Thomson in the Washington Post. "Not since Robert De Niro morphed into hulk dimensions to play heavyweight boxer Jake La Motta in Raging Bull has there been a transformation this powerful and effective." For the most part, Monster's filmmakers share in the acclaim. Steven Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer writes: "Monster brings the horror stories of everyday life down to a recognizable level - even as the actress inhabiting that story remains startlingly unrecognizable." But Eleanor Ringel Gillespie in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution hands the filmmakers a "C" grade, suggesting that writer-director Jenkins has been unable to focus the story on Wuornos's "pathology and pathos." She concludes that "Monster isn't entirely the movie it could be but, as is, it's still compelling."

Poor Mandy Moore. She's now made four films and received mostly good notices in all of them, but the films themselves have generally been critically derided. Her current film, Chasing Liberty, is no exception. "Chasing Liberty is a comedy with no sense of fun, a romance with no passion," comments Jami Bernard in the New York Daily News. Claudia Puig in USA Today describes it as "an innocuous, occasionally cute movie made watchable by the appealing Mandy Moore and hunky Matthew Goode. Megan Lehmann in the New York Post calls it "a feather-light, doggedly formulaic romantic comedy that's almost instantly forgettable despite the sunny presence of teen queen Mandy Moore." And Elvis Mitchell in the New York Times observes: "The movie puts a lot of weight on Ms. Moore's adorability factor -- and exhausts it rather quickly." Still, the film does get a handful of positive reviews. Writes Philip Wuntch in today's Dallas Morning News: "What we have is a sprightly comedy with Ms. Moore delivering a sprightly performance and speaking reasonably sprightly dialogue. If you prefer dour movies, look elsewhere."

Home video sellers and renters chalked up $22.5 billion in transactions during 2003, 18 percent above sales and rentals for 2002, according to a report by Digital Entertainment Group released at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas Thursday. Seventy-two percent of the total was claimed by DVDs. In a statement, DEG president Bob Chapek observed that "the DVD format has emerged as the dominant format in the home entertainment industry." The most-rented video of the year was The Bourne Identity from Universal ($79.2 million), while Disney/Buena Vista's Finding Nemo was designated the top-selling DVD of the year (1,954,000 copies sold).

Elton John says that he plans to hold open auditions to find young performers to star in the West End musical version of the hit film Billy Elliot.In an interview with the London Sun, John said that because of British child labor laws that limit the number of hours children may work, he must find three or four actors to play the title role. Applicants will be required to sing, dance and speak in the accent of Northeast England. John also indicated that he has completed writing the music for the show. "I found the music really easy to write," he told the Sun. "There is so much inspiration from the era in which it is set, during the miners' strike."

A number of animators fired by Disney when it closed its Florida animation studios last year have formed their own company, Legacy Animation Studios, and announced Thursday that they plan to set up shop in Winter Garden, Florida later this month. "We believe that traditionally animated films are still a viable form of entertainment," Legacy's directing manager, Eddie Pittman, said in a statement. "Our goal is to create quality animated films with compelling stories and strong characters and to continue Walt Disney's legacy of hand drawn animation."

Charging the South Korean government with foot dragging in its efforts to combat piracy, U.S. trade officials placed the peninsula nation on its "priority watch," a preliminary action that could eventually lead to trade sanctions if the country does not crack down on bootleggers. Officials at the South Korean Embassy in Washington expressed disappointment with the move and insisted that the U.S. had failed to recognize "substantial improvements" in its anti-piracy efforts. Jean Prewitt, president of the American Film Marketing Association, said that independent film makers had been particularly hard hit by the pirates. She told today's (Friday) Los Angeles Times that in some cases government officials had granted film ratings to certain U.S. movies to allow them to be shown in theaters and released on home video without checking whether the applicants had the rights to the film.

The 90-minute debut of the Donald Trump reality series The Apprentice made an impressive showing on NBC Thursday night, averaging a solid 13.6 rating and a 19 share between 8:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m., beating the second half of a CSI rerun (11.3/17) on CBS at 8:30 but falling behind an all-new episode (19.3/28) at 9:00 p.m. (Earlier in the evening, Trump appeared on the syndicated Access Hollywood, where he blasted CBS's Les Moonves for dropping the Miss Universe contest, which Trump owns. "I must tell you that if I were Sumner Redstone and I saw the bad deal he made on the Miss Universe contest, he wouldn't be running CBS," he said. Trump suggested that Moonves decided to program the CSI rerun against The Apprentice in the first half hour out of spite, following the breakdown in the Miss Universe talks. "We're honored because they put their best show against us," Trump said. Meanwhile, today's Page Six column in the New York Post, quoted an unnamed CBS spokesman as saying, "Les Moonves is running the No. 1 network in television and we're somehow managing to limp along without the Miss Universe pageant.") Meanwhile, Pete Rose's mea culpa on ABC's Primetime failed to attract a significant audience, scoring a 6.3/9 against a 16.5/24 for NBC's E.R. and a 13.3/20 for CBS's Without a Trace. Overall, NBC took back the Thursday-night crown with an average 15.2/22, edging out CBS's 14.6/21. ABC remained far behind with a 5.6/8 and Fox, even farther behind with a 4.2/6.

Diane Dimond, whose sources in the District Attorney's Office in Santa Barbara, CA helped her scoop the competition on the latest Michael Jackson case, has been hired by NBC to report on the case for The Today Show. In its original news reports on NBC Nightly News and Dateline, NBC has often appeared to approach the case as if the evidence against Jackson was incontrovertible. However, New York Post columnist Cindy Adams reported today (Friday) that two lawyers refused to take the plaintiffs' case after concluding that it was not strong enough. Moreover, she said, members of the "Santa Barbara police community" have expressed the belief that the evidence against Jackson is flimsy. She quoted legal sources as saying that the indictment "could fall apart unless additional evidence is found" and that the prosecution has "nothing that's triable."

Alan Ball, the creator and executive producer of HBO's Six Feet Under, is apparently unperturbed after learning that the show will be ineligible for Emmy nominations this year, since the fourth season is being delayed until June -- outside the 2003-2004 official season. This year, SFU received 16 Emmy nominations, the most of any show, and wound up with six awards. In an interview with TV Guide Online, Ball said, "I don't really think about those things that much. ... I'm very fortunate in that the show has been so honored, so it becomes less important. It's always nice [to be recognized], but it's not the point... it's not the reason. [Besides], we'll be eligible next year." Ball also disclosed that he has recruited Ellen DeGeneres for what the magazine called, without elaboration, "a guest stint."

Although ESPN exec Ron Semiao told members of the TV Critics Association this week that the odds are 50-50 -- "a coin flip" -- that the sports network will return its critically acclaimed drama Playmakers to its schedule this year, the writers themselves are expressing skepticism. "Smart money says ESPN will cave to the NFL -- its most important franchise -- and kill the 25-year-old network's first scripted dramatic series," commented the Philadelphia Inquirer's TV columnist Gail Shister. "The NFL wants Playmakers' sacked, and ESPN looks as though it's ready to give in," wrote Ed Bark in today's (Friday) Dallas Morning News. Most writers focused on Semiao's remark during his news conference that "We are not in the business of antagonizing our partners." However, Bark later went on to say that ESPN's sports news, which often includes reports about player misconduct, would be unaffected. "Covering the news is covering reality," Semiao said. "That is different than talking about a fictional television series."