Critics by and large have concluded that Evan Almighty is no The Ten Commandments, that Steve Carell is no Charlton Heston, and that director Tom Shadyac is no Cecil B. DeMille. "Here's the funniest thing: In trying desperately to reconnect with religious Americans, Hollywood assumes religious Americans are so dumb they'll laugh at anything," Michael Booth observes in the Denver Post.Actually, Lou Lumenick in the New York Post suggests that the movie may be a hit despite its meager offerings. "The Red State folk may be more receptive to this bland, family-friendly entertainment than we cynics living in the Blue States," he says. But Chris Vognar, writing in the Red State of Texas calls Evan Almighty "an unholy mess" and "a movie desperately in search of a soul." The film takes an almost universal pounding in both Red and Blue states. "There's no movie here -- just a concept that holds little promise and can't even deliver on those low expectations," comments Richard Roeper in the Chicago Sun-Times.Despite its huge budget, Liam Lacey writes in the Toronto Globe and Mail, the film winds up as "a lesson in the importance of tameness." He concludes: "It's as if the script were based on a typo in Genesis - you know, the version where the Lord says, 'Let there be slight.'" Indeed, Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times remarks that the film feels "like it had been written over a weekend with a book of bad Bible puns in hand." Or as Rafer Gusmán of Newsday puts it similarly in Newsday: "Mostly it feels like a store-bought mix of jokes and sentiments." Claudia Puig in USA Today dismisses it more trenchantly: "It's an almighty, humorless bore," she writes.

A Mighty Heart, starring Angelina Jolie as Mariane Pearl, wife of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl -- who was beheaded by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002 -- is receiving near-reverent reviews by most critics. In particular, Wall Street Journal critic Joe Morgenstern praises director Michael Winterbottom for "an agile style ... that integrates drama and documentary footage, mixes professional with non-professional actors and yields a sense of place that's as vivid as anything seen on TV news." Jan Stuart in Newsday writes that director Winterbottom has fashioned "a compassionate thriller that reminds us of the human issues underscoring the terrorist quagmire Pearl was attempting to sort out." But it is Jolie's performance that receives particular acclaim: "Jolie's measured approach to portraying Mariane is worthy of Best Actress consideration come awards time. Even in the film's most dramatic moment, when news of Danny's murder hit home, Jolie's explosion of grief never registers as false or forced," Peter Howell writes in the Toronto Star. But, most importantly, Manohla Dargis suggests in the New York Times, "In its modest, at times awkward, way, this little movie with the big movie star tries to bring us into a conversation that, at least in this country, is often relegated to the bummer front pages of your daily paper or glimpsed on television in between diet tips and, yes, news about Brangelina." And Roger Ebert concludes in the Chicago Sun-Times: "What is best about A Mighty Heart is that it doesn't reduce the Daniel Pearl story to a plot, but elevates it to a tragedy. A tragedy that illuminates and grieves for the hatred that runs loose in our world, hatred as a mad dog that attacks everyone. Attacks them for what seems, to the dog, the best of reasons."

Critics, who are used to roundly cursing just about every newly released horror film, aren't doing so in the case of 1408, a film based on a story by Stephen King about a cursed hotel room. Desson Thomson begins his review in the Washington Post by writing, "Listen up, all you Hostels, Saws and other purveyors of bloody terror. Think you're lords of the fright market? Lay down your whips, chainsaws and paring knives to watch a truly scary movie. You might just learn something." John Cusack is also receiving kudos for his performance as a ghost debunker: "Cusack, in a veritable one-man-show, gets to play mournful, funny, reckless, cocky, contrite and scared out of his wits. The effects are well-orchestrated, and the sly humor oozes out like toothpaste from a tube," writes Stephen Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer.Glenn Whipp in the Los Angeles Daily News remarks that the movie "is essentially a one-man show, and Cusack makes the most of the opportunity." Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune comments that "the actor deploys his deadpan cool very artfully." But Elizabeth Weitzman concludes in the New York Daily News, "In this mix of recycled scares and half-hearted twists, the only real fright is the sight of an interesting actor wasting his talents in yet another mediocre movie."

This may officially be the first weekend of the summer, but the summer is half over so far as Hollywood is concerned -- and it's uncertain how much longer younger moviegoers will be willing to tap their summer paychecks to see the latest blockbusters. This weekend will put the $200-million epic Evan Almighty, starring Steve Carell, to the test. The movie is the most expensive comedy ever made. Universal has conservatively estimated that the film will do about $40 million, well below the $67.9 million that its predecessor, Bruce Almighty, took in in 2003. Universal, however, has been marketing the film heavily to churchgoers across the country, and they could prove to be a wild card at the box office. Analysts have been loath to challenge the studio's estimate, particularly inasmuch as their track record hasn't been particularly strong this summer. Last weekend, for example, they predicted that Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer would likely take in about $30 million; it wound up taking in nearly twice that amount. Also opening this weekend is The Weinstein Co.'s 1408, based on a Stephen King story and starring John Cusack. Paramount Vantage will also be opening Å Mighty Heart, which many critics are predicting will earn its star, Angelina Jolie, an Oscar for her performance as Mariane Pearl, wife of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

General Electric will not compete against Rupert Murdoch's News Corp to buy Dow Jones & Co, publishers of the Wall Street Journal. GE had reportedly had exploratory talks with Pearson PLC, publisher of the London Financial Times about making a complicated joint offer to the Bancroft family that would have packaged GE stock and GE-owned business cable channel CNBC into the deal. In the end, they reportedly concluded that no matter how they structured a proposal to the Bancrofts, it was not likely to beat Murdoch's offer of $60 per share. "Rupert, all along, has been the logical and only buyer for these assets, and the Bancrofts at this point would be well advised to entertain the offer," Gamco Investors analyst Lawrence J. Haverty Jr. told Bloomberg News. "No one will pay more."

The supposed "murder" of WWE Chairman Vince McMahon in a car bombing lifted ratings for USA Net's 3-hour WWE Raw to the top of the Nielsen basic-cable ratings list for the week of June 11-17. The 10:00 p.m. hour was No. 1 on the list with 6.32 million viewers; the 9:00 p.m. hour, No. 2 with 5.68 million; and the 8:00 p.m. hour, No. 6 with 4.3 million. Ratings for cable networks are delayed longer than those for broadcast networks, but last Monday's three-hour follow-up seems certain to pull equally strong numbers. (It included a "memorial" address from Stephanie McMahon, Vince's daughter from the center of the ring, in which she remarked, "My dad wanted to leave this world the same way he lived in it, in the biggest way possible.") Although the WWE is claiming on its website that a federal investigation has been launched into the car bombing, the FBI has denied that any such an investigation has been launched. The blog Let's Wrestle commented that it's all "simply a storyline that is sure to stretch out for quite awhile."

A clearly drunk O.J. Simpson was caught on video by a TMZ cameraman emerging from the Forge Restaurant in Miami Beach Wednesday night. Asked about the posting of the manuscript of his If I Did It on the TMZ website, Simpson commented, "They should be able to do what they want to do. Don't let them keep you from doing what everybody else is doing," He denied that he had anything to do with the posting of the manuscript, then began making unintelligible comments about the families of murder victims Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman and about Rupert Murdoch. He then said, "TMZ, thank you for putting this book out free to the public so nobody made any blood money at this point."

A spokesman for Paris Hilton has denied a report appearing in the New York Post Thursday that the jailed socialite had accepted an offer of $1 million for an exclusive appearance on the Today show upon her release. "Contrary to media reports, Paris Hilton is not being paid for any television interview. Nor is Paris being paid for any collateral, including video and photographs related to any television interview," the spokesman said. And an NBC spokeswoman told today's (Friday) New York Times: "NBC News does not pay for interviews -- never have, never will." However, today's Los Angeles Times quoted Poynter Institute journalism-ethics professor Al Tompkins as saying that networks today are making "end runs" around their policy not to pay for interviews. The newspaper cited last week's Matt Lauer interview with Prince William and Prince Harry, which aired on the Today show and Dateline after NBC agreed to pay $2.5 million for the rights to air a tribute concert to Princess Diana. (ABC's Barbara Walters has acknowledged that she offered to buy family photographs and videos of Paris and other material from the Hilton family for $100,000 in return for an exclusive interview. She told the New York Times that Rick Hilton called her back Wednesday that the offer was "not even in the same galaxy" as NBC's offer.) Referring to reports about an NBC-Paris Hilton deal, Tompkins said, "I don't know what transpired here, but what I do know is that any compensation that comes through a network -- whether it's a book deal or movie deal or offering special access -- none of that has any place in news."

Fox News anchor Shepard Smith has given the news crew at Fox TV-owned WFLD in Chicago advice on how to improve their 10:00 p.m. newscast. According to Chicago Sun Times TV columnist Robert Feder, Smith delivered his assessment with "brutal honesty," as one insider put it, urging the newscast's producers to add more music, bigger graphics and pick up the pace. One person who attended the lunch meeting recalled Smith saying, "I'm not here to talk to you about journalism. ... I'm here to talk to you about good TV."

Fox News Channel is replacing entertainment reporter Bill McCuddy with Jill Dobson, who writes for the supermarket tabloid Star, TVNewser reported Thursday. McCuddy, who has reported for Fox News since it went on the air in 1996, is expected to depart by the end of the summer.