In an apparent reaction to the posting of high-quality digital prints of Michael Moore's Sicko on several peer-to-peer websites (Moore has suggested that the piracy was undertaken in order to sabotage the film.) the Weinstein Co. announced Tuesday that it will open the film in New York on Friday, a week earlier than originally scheduled, and provide sneak previews in 43 theaters in virtually all the top 30 markets. It will face another strong "message" film -- A Mighty Heart, starring Angelina Jolie as the wife of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. A standing ovation followed the screening of Sicko at its New York premiere on Monday. Mixed reviews followed on Tuesday. Jack Mathews in the New York Daily News called it "Moore's most assured, least antagonistic and potentially most important film" to date. Gene Seymour in Newsday commented, "What's most striking about Sicko is how composed, even serene it is compared with Michael Moore's previous acts of cinematic insurgency." But the New York Post's lively conservative critic Kyle Smith called it "political slapstick that could have been made by a third Farrelly brother or a fourth Stooge."

The $25-million stage production of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings which opened in London's West End Tuesday night was no match for Peter Jackson's film version, several London critics observed today (Wednesday). Charles Spencer in the Daily Telegraph called the production "a thumping great flop. I took my 14-year-old son along, who enjoyed Peter Jackson's epic Lord of the Rings films and is, I would guess, exactly the age and sex this show needs to attract in order to survive. Unfortunately, he hated it even more than I did, sitting with his head in his hands in those moments when he wasn't tittering at the ponderous inanities of the script and the triteness of the lyrics." Michael Coveney on the British website Whatsonstage.com commented, "The movie, irresistibly, is as much about the fight for friendship as the fight for freedom. Here, an audience is invited to share in a fight to solve a series of staging problems." Kieron Quirke in the Evening Standard described the show as "an empty-headed and messy extravaganza that will appall established fans." On the other hand, Michael Billington wrote in the Guardian, "Having dipped only briefly into the original trilogy and the Peter Jackson movies, I entered Drury Lane [theater district] as innocent as any hairy-toed hobbit. I emerged three and a quarter hours later ... hugely impressed." The London Times' critic, Sam Marlowe, wrote: "The show has charm, wit and jaw-dropping theatrical brio; crucially, it also has real emotional heft."

For the first time since Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, a distributor will be courting the church-going audience with the release of Universal's $200-million Evan Almighty -- reportedly the most costly comedy ever made -- this weekend. Today's (Wednesday) Los Angeles Times observed that in recent years, studios have avoided making films with content aimed at the faithful. (Gibson's Passion was self-financed; Disney's The Chronicles of Narnia played down the religious themes, although the studio heavily marketed the film to churchgoers.) However, the Times observed, "If Evan Almighty turns into a summer hit, as several competing studio executives predict, the movie could put Hollywood back in the business of making big-budget movies that intentionally embrace sacred subjects." According to the newspaper, Universal has partnered with Grace Hill Media, the marketing firm that several studios are using to bring the film to the attention of the country's estimated 200,000 churches. It has conservatively estimated that the movie will earn $40 million on opening weekend.

Marc Forster, whose films include Stranger Than Fiction, Finding Neverland, and Monster's Ball, has been signed by producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli to direct the 22nd James Bond movie, Sony Pictures Entertainment and MGM announced Tuesday. The companies said that Daniel Craig will return in the role of Bond. In a statement, Forster said, "The new direction that the Bond character has taken offers a director a host of new possibilities." Sony Pictures Entertainment Co-chairman Amy Pascal commented that Forster's previous films show "that he will bring to this film all the elements Bond audiences expect -- action, humor, suspense, and thrills." The title of the film has not been disclosed.

NBC, which struggled during the regular season just to place any of its shows on Nielsen Research's top-ten ratings list, had the No. 1 show on the list for the second week in a row. The show, America's Got Talent, drew 11.82 million viewers. Among adults 18-49, Fox's Hell's Kitchen took top honors. Nevertheless, CBS won the week among overall households, thanks to a strong assortment of regular shows -- mostly reruns -- and the NBA finals, which pulled strong ratings by ordinary standards but not by the standards of past NBA telecasts.

The top ten shows of the week according to Nielsen Research: 1. America's Got Talent, NBC, 7.4/13; 2. NBA Finals Game 4, ABC, 6.5/9; 3. NCIS, CBS, 6.5/12; 4. So You Think Can Dance (Thursday), Fox, 6.5/11; 5. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CBS, 6.4/11; 6. NBA Finals Game 3, ABC, 6.4/9; 7. CSI: Miami, CBS, 6.3/11; 8. Cold Case, CBS, 6.2/11; 9. Law and Order: SVU, NBC, 6.1/7; 10. Two and a Half Men, CBS, 6.1/10.

Tuesday night's season premiere of The Closer on TNT drew 8.8 million viewers, breaking a record that the series set last year as basic cable's most-viewed series telecast when it attracted 8.3 million for the season opener. Turner Entertainment Network President Steve Koonin told Broadcasting & Cable, "This sends a signal to every artist and agent in the industry that TNT and cable is (sic) capable of getting these kinds of numbers."

CBS is about to learn whether TV audiences, conditioned to seeing judges who are tough and officious, will accept one who wears his heart on his robes. Broadcasting & Cable reported Tuesday that Judge Larry Seidlin, who raised eyebrows while tearfully delivering his ruling in the Anna Nicole Smith custody case, will star in a new daytime TV series being developed by CBS Television Distribution, the network's syndication arm. Seidlin on Tuesday resigned from Florida's circuit family court effective July 31, but said only that he planned to help his "fellow citizens through roles in the educational system, the media and non-profit organizations."

The gossip website TMZ has published three passages from O.J. Simpson's If I Did It and has indicated that it has obtained the entire manuscript. The website did not indicate whether it has also obtained a copy of the television interview with Simpson that had been scheduled to air on the Fox TV network in connection with the original publishing plans. All copies of the book were reportedly ordered destroyed by Rupert Murdoch, who owned the publishing company, and the Fox telecast was also canceled. Publication of the excerpts drew fire from the family of Ron Goldman, who was killed with Simpson's ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson. Goldman attorney Jonathan Polak told the New York Daily News that the publication destroys the book's potential value and came just days away from a legal settlement which would have given the Goldmans the right to sell the book to a publisher. "There is only one person who could have been behind this -- and that's O.J. Simpson," Polak told the newspaper. Simpson's current attorney, Yale Galanter, called the accusation "Baloney."

In what amounts to the first Beatles reunion -- of sorts -- Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono Lennon, and Olivia Harrison will be interviewed together on Larry King Live next Tuesday. Joining them will be Cirque du Soleil founder and CEO Guy Laliberté, whose Love show at The Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, featuring digitally remixed recordings of the Beatles' music, is celebrating its one-year anniversary. Reporting on the telecast, Orlando Sentinel TV columnist Hal Boedeker commented, "McCartney and Ono together? That's a must-see, isn't it?"

The Australian Secret Intelligence Organization (ASIO) a kind of domestic CIA operating in Australia, routinely spied on newspaper and broadcast journalists in the 1960s and '70s in the agency's hunt for possible communist sympathizers, according to a report that aired today (Wednesday) on the Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC). The ABC program Dateline cited one memo which described an ABC employee as drinking heavily, having affairs with news typists, and nearly always wearing a red shirt. After an ABC journalist received a phone call from a Communist party official in 1972, ASIO head Peter Barbour contacted ABC General Manager Talbot Duckmanton. A subsequent memo said that Duckmanton told Barbour that "it was possible that the opportunity might be taken for [the journalist] not to be returned to his present duties." Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock told the ABC that under current law, such spying could not happen at the ABC or any other media organization.

Ed Friendly, who with George Schlatter, created the 1960s' comedy hit Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, then went on to produce the hit dramatic series Little House on the Prairie, died Sunday of cancer at age 85 in Rancho Santa Fe, CA.