Talk about being damned with faint praise -- the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line is receiving mostly "twixt and between" reviews that are not likely to spur even the late singer's fans to rush out over the weekend to see it. A. O. Scott in the New York Times calls it "competently written" but remarks that it "offers more tribute than insight." Liam Lacey in the Toronto Globe & Mail, while praising the performances of Joaquin Phoenix as Cash and Reese Witherspoon as June Carter, comments that while "Johnny Cash was anything but conventional, the film ... is a conventional show-business romance and biography." Ann Hornaday remarks in the Washington Post: "Unfortunately, for all its good music and admirable vocal impersonations, Walk the Line ... hews to the hoary conventions of an increasingly tired Hollywood staple. Boy nurtures nascent talent, boy suffers primal loss, boy meets girl, boy meets drugs, boy loses girl, boy kicks drugs, boy gets girl, boy is redeemed." On the other hand, Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times comes to the defense of those conventions, writing: "Essentially this is the story of John and June and a lot of great music. And essentially that's the story we want." And Bob Strauss in the Los Angeles Daily News echoes that the movie "may not be the most innovative musical biopic, but they sure ain't makin' love stories like this one anymore." Indeed, there are numerous raves for the movie. Mike Clark in USA Today comments that it "goes from compelling to enthralling." And most of the critics credit the performances of Phoenix and Witherspoon. As Carina Chocano observes in the Los Angeles Times: "Theirs are the kinds of performances the Academy Awards live to reward, comprising as they do a sort of acting decathlon. But the best thing about Phoenix and Witherspoon is their emotional connection, which carries the movie and transcends the material."

With critics hailing Warner Bros.' Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as the best of the four Potter films, analysts are speculating about whether the film will also become the best at the box office. Each of the three predecessors opened with about $90 million domestically, with last year's Prisoner of Azkaban scoring the highest gross, $93.7 million. Some analysts suggest that the new film has a slight chance of pushing past the opening of Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith, which bowed with $108.4 million last May. The big question is, what will be the effect of the PG-13 rating at the box office? Will it keep families with small children away? (If so, that could represent a big boost for Disney's Chicken Little.) Or will it result in attracting more adults, who shunned the earlier Potter flicks after concluding that they were principally aimed at youngsters? "We have no concerns that the box office is going to be great," Warner Bros. distribution chief Dan Fellman, told Daily Variety. "Whether it will be $5 million more or less [than the previous films], it's hard to say."

Surprisingly, Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith has spent only one week at the top of the home-video charts. According to Nielsen VideoScan's First Alert, the movie -- this year's biggest at the box office -- fell to second place as Warner Home Video's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, starring Johnny Depp and directed by Tim Burton, knocked it off in both sales and rentals. In fact the original 1971 version of the film, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, starring Gene Wilder, ranked seventh on the DVD sales charts.

Universal will use the much-maligned peer-to-peer technology to provide movies on demand via the Internet next year. The studio said that it had struck a deal with Wurld Media of Saratoga Springs, NY to distribute films, securing from the P2P firm a promise not to carry unlicensed content on its Peer Impact network. Users will be able to view a downloaded film at any time during a 24-hour period, but they must keep it on their computers for at least 30 days, since, under P2P technology, the more computers storing a film, the faster it can be downloaded by others. Although Thursday's announcement was made by "NBC Universal," the company indicated that NBC programs will not be included in the package of about 100 films that are expected to become available on Peer Impact.

The owners of a former Los Angeles-area aerospace facility that was converted into a movie sound stage have sued Local 44 of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE), alleging that union leaders have repeatedly spread false claims that the studio is unsafe. More than 30 members of the local, which represents prop workers, have filed workers' compensation claims alleging that they experienced health problems as a result of working at Downey Studios. However, attorneys for Downey Studios claim in their lawsuit that three environmental testing firms have concluded that the plant poses no health risks to workers and that the union's claims are hurting potential business deals with filmmakers.

CBS's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation fell just short of pulling in 30 million viewers Thursday night -- it wound up with 28.82 million -- but it was nevertheless the highest-rated regular show of the season, boasting a 19.5 rating and a 28 share, slightly higher than last week's 19.2/28. The rest of the network's Thursday-night line-up also overwhelmed the competition as it averaged a 15.2/23 for the night. (That, too, represented the highest average numbers scored by a broadcast network on any night since the season began.) By contrast, NBC on Thursday placed a distant second with an 8.8/13, followed by ABC with a 5.1/8. The WB edged out Fox for fourth place with a 3.8/6 to Fox's 3.5/5. UPN was close behind with a 3.0/4.

The Walt Disney Co. reported mixed results Thursday -- big net gains at its ABC network and ESPN cable sports channel but the sharpest losses at its film division in six years. Analysts pointed out that the movie losses were mostly due to a slew of Miramax movies that were pulled off shelves and dumped unceremoniously into the market as the studio's founders, Bob and Harvey Weinstein, departed. Broadcast results were just short of spectacular, however, especially when compared with recent years'. ABC, which reported a loss of $75 million in operating income in the quarter last year, climbed into the black with $48 million this year. ESPN jumped to $584 million from $523 million. "We recognize there are aspects of the results that are disappointing," CFO Thomas Staggs told today's (Friday) Los Angeles Times. "At the same time, we think we are on the right track with where we are taking the studio and the company as a whole."

The House of Representatives early today (Friday) voted to set December 31, 2008 as the cut-off date for television stations to complete the transition from analog to digital TV. A similar bill, passed by the Senate, calls for an April 2009 cut-off. Lawmakers from the two houses will now meet in hopes of reaching a compromise. Today's vote also provides for nearly $1 billion to help low-income consumers purchase settop boxes to convert digital signals so that they can be viewed on older TV models.

Former Desperate Housewives actor Page Kennedy has denied reports that he was fired because he exposed himself to members of the production crew. In an interview with the Detroit Free Press, Kennedy said, "There are a lot of stories that have been told, but the truth of the matter is that Touchstone [the show's producer] decided to go in a new direction, and they bought out my contract." He said that he's worried that the allegations and rumors about his conduct will damage his career.

ABC plans to broadcast Peter Jennings' final documentary, about America's health-care system, on December 15. The documentary, produced by Jennings' independent PJ Productions, will feature interviews conducted by the late ABC anchor earlier this year -- it was written and edited while he was undergoing treatment for lung cancer -- but it will not be narrated by him. "Peter's voice was not strong enough to narrate the program, but, as you will see, it is still very much Peter Jennings' reporting," Tom Yellin, who now heads PJ Productions, told Reuters. Under a deal signed in 2002, ABC agreed to buy four documentaries per year from PJ Productions through 2007.

Former and current news employees of Sinclair Broadcasting have described the owners' campaign to court powerful conservative legislators who responded by clearing away legal obstacles and thereby allow Sinclair to become the largest owner of TV stations in America. In interviews appearing in GQ magazine, the employees describe how they were subjected to political litmus tests before being hired, how they were ordered to report only "good news" about Iraq, how an interview with President Bush was delivered to stations with orders to replace the image of the interviewer with that of the local anchor, and how stations were required to run a nightly right-wing editorial delivered by Sinclair exec Mark Hyman that once accused the late Peter Jennings of "appearing to favor terrorists over America." (One local producer said that when she used a graphic to identify Hyman's commentary as an "editorial," Sinclair officials ordered her to remove the offending word.) Former Sinclair Reporter Jon Leiberman, who was fired for protesting against a planned anti-Kerry documentary last year (Leiberman says he voted for Bush in both presidential elections) said that Sinclair co-owner David Smith once told him his news reports ought "to look more like Mark's editorials." In addition to providing ideological aid, the GQ article alleges, Smith and his three brothers have reportedly contributed $2.3 million to the campaigns of key Republican Congressmen.