Film critics, who by and large have been giving the recent crop of movie sequels decidedly mixed reviews, have not changed their tone with the release of Shrek the Third, which officially opens on Friday but is also being screened at many theaters beginning at midnight tonight (Thursday). In her review in today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Eleanor Ringle Gillespie acknowledges that given the massive fandom that the Shrek character has produced, "whether or not li'l old me likes Shrek the Third isn't going to amount to a hill of beans." Still, she remarks, the movie is "not very good" and later, "The magic is gone." Many of the same critics who are writing negatively about the film had praised the original two installments. One of them is Carrie Rickey of the Philadelphia Inquirer, who writes, "It grieves me to report that the third time is charmless. ... Shrek the Third isn't a movie, it's the extension of a brand." The cancer-recovering Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times pays a return visit to the movie franchise only to find it "lacking the comic energy of the first brilliant film and not measuring up to the second." Christy Lemire of the Associated Press writes that the movie is "smothered in a suffocating sense of been-there, done-that." Or as Claudia Puig puts it in USA Today, "The main element that's missing in this third go-round is the sense of fresh discovery felt with the 2001 original." Carina Chocano opines that too much of the kids movie is aimed not at kids but at their parents. "Does a kids' movie really need, among other similar touches, a Hooters joke?" she asks. "I, for one, wouldn't want to have to explain it." Jack Mathews in the New York Daily News objects to a scene in which "a husky, whisker-studded transsexual princess says of Prince Charming, he 'makes me hotter than July.'" Then again, Kyle Smith in the New York Post notes that the film ends with "a salvo of poop, farts and belches -- delightful to 5-year-olds, but then so are belly buttons, kazoos and Night at the Museum."

Talk about synergy! Universal NBC is going all out tonight to promote Evan Almighty, which stars Steve Carell of NBC's The Office and opens on June 22. The media conglomerate is not only airing a promo at the end of the season finale of The Office, but it will also air on every NBC Universal-owned cable network at the exact same time -- 8:58 p.m. The networks include: MSNBC, SciFi, Bravo, USA, Universal HD, CNBC, Mun2, Chiller, and Sleuth. At the same time a six-minute streaming trailer will also be available on NBC's comedy site, www.dotcomedy.com. Evan Almighty, a quasi-sequel to Bruce Almighty, also stars other familiar TV faces such as Lauren Graham, Wanda Sykes and John Goodman.

Robert De Niro and Al Pacino will co-star in the indie film Righteous Kill from Nu Image's Millennium Films and Emmett Furla Films, Daily Variety reported from the Cannes Film Festival today (Thursday). The trade publication quoted Nu Image chief Avi Lerner as saying, "This is an event in world history." Lerner pointed out that De Niro and Pacino had appeared together only once before in a film. "They were in two scenes in Heat. In this movie, they are in the whole thing together," he said.

Apparently hoping to show that the decision by the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control to investigate his trip to Cuba was politically motivated, Michael Moore's attorney, David Boles, fired off a letter to the Treasury Department Wednesday demanding, under the Freedom of Information Act, all documents and email messages related to the department's investigation. In the film, titled Sicko, Moore takes a group of 9/11 responders to Cuba for treatment. He has said that he applied for permission to visit Cuba but that the Treasury department never acted on his application.

Toshiba intensified its high-definition-disk battle with Sony's Blu-ray players by offering a month-long, instant $100 rebate on its own HD DVD players. The rebate brings down the price of a high-definition player to a record-low $299. In addition, Toshiba is offering to knock $100 off the price of any of its HDTV sets that are purchased with an HD DVD player. The company recently announced that buyers of its HD DVD players would also be able to select five free HDTV movies from a selection of fifteen. The promotion is set to launch on Sunday and continue until June 16.

CBS's Jericho will come tumbling down next season -- its ratings demonstrating to network executives that it was not fit for battle. It was the latest of a series of announcements by the networks that they are abandoning the onetime popular serial dramas. Meeting with reporters on Wednesday, CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler indicated that the network -- which remains the most watched -- plans to alter its conservative image by attempting to introduce some "daring" new programs next year. "We said this was the year because we have stability, we had the strength. We wanted to make a little noise and stir things up," she commented as she took the wraps off the network's plans for next season. Added CBS Chairman Les Moonves: "We wanted to take some chances -- we could afford to." By far, the most unusual entry will be Viva Laughlin, about a gambler who dreams of buying a casino in Nevada. At times in the drama, the characters lip-sync pop songs. It is exec produced by actor Hugh Jackman, who will also make occasional appearances as a regular character. A new detective series, Moonlight, features a vampire as the private eye. A new reality series, Kid Nation, will feature 40 8-15-year-olds building their own city in the New Mexico desert, without any help from adults. "Stunningly," wrote Washington Post TV writer Lisa De Moraes, "the network taking the wildest swings next season with its new series choices is also the one with the most viewers."

In a surprise, Melinda Doolittle, a professional backup singer and widely regarded as the performer to beat during the current American Idol competition, was eliminated Tuesday, leaving Jordin Sparks, 17, and Blake Lewis, 25, as the two finalists. After hearing the voting results, judge Simon Cowell remarked, "My commiserations, Melinda, because you are one heck of a singer." However, several American Idol finalists have succeeded in rising to prominence as recording stars even after being eliminated in the competition, among them Chris Daughtry, Elliot Yamin, and Academy Award winner Jennifer Hudson. Wednesday night's show produced a 16.2 rating and a 25 share for Fox.

Another homemade video by an accused killer has turned up on national television -- this one made by music producer Phil Spector, who is now being tried for the 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson. In the video, broadcast Wednesday on Inside Edition, Spector denies that he killed Clarkson, saying that the 5-foot-11-inch woman "was standing when she took her own life" and that since he is only 5-foot-five, "it would have been physically impossible for me to have administered the death wound to her." At another point in the tape, Spector called testimony by four women who claim that he had threatened them with a gun "nonsense." He said the women "just want to get on Inside Edition ... and they want to make money." He then held a $100,000 check before the camera and challenged the women to take lie-detector tests. "Here's a chance to make money," he said.

The Media Institute, composed of such media behemoths as Viacom, NBC Universal, the Tribune Co., Time Warner, and News Corp, has rebutted claims by the FCC that television violence inspires violent behavior by young people and should be relegated to time periods when they are not watching. In a research paper prepared for the group, Toronto professor Jonathan Freedman called into question previous research on the top, saying that "the evidence is not overwhelming" that there is a link between television and aggression or violence. "Rather than analyzing the conflicting evidence and opinion, the (FCC) report simply comes down on the side of those who believe television violence is harmful," Freedman said. "There is no careful analysis of the research; there is no careful explanation of their conclusions."

Reese Schonfeld, who cofounded CNN with Ted Turner in 1980, says he believes that CBS is unlikely to improve its ratings by simply returning to the traditional formula of news and features that evening news programs have dished out from the beginning. Telling the New York Observer that "CBS made a fundamental error in thinking that changing their anchor would make any difference," Schonfeld pointed to the winning effort of Roger Ailes in overwhelming CNN in the ratings. Ailes and Fox News, he said, succeeded by tailoring their news to a niche audience. Likewise, he said, Katie Couric "needs a whole new idea." He expressed doubt that veteran TV news producer Rick Kaplan, who was brought in to rescue the CBS Evening News program, would be able to do so.