In addition to the slew of blockbusters that have taken over the multiplexes for the Independence Day holiday, the critically praised The Wackness, starring Ben Kingsley and Josh Peck, Mary-Kate Olsen and Olivia Thirlby is opening in limited release today (Friday) to largely enthusiastic reviews. Rafer Guzmán in the Newsday indicates the movie "is less a story than a series of moments -- some funny, some poignant, all memorable." Comments Claudia Puig in USA Today: "The writing and filmmaking style are often poetic, and the dialogue, steeped in '90s phrases, sounds believable. ... The Wackness is both darkly funny and life-affirming, in an offbeat and offhanded way." Some critics suggest, however, that the movie was contrived primarily for the film-festival crowd and like many festival competitors is overloaded with preadult angst. Although set in New York in 1994, Jan Stuart notes in the Los Angeles Times, the movie "is ultimately less evocative of pre-Sept. 11 Manhattan than it is of post-Sept. 11 Park City, Utah, where the film had its Sundance debut." And Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News concludes that the film is ultimately a disappointment. The film, he writes, "occasionally stumbles into charm but more often is just wayward and hazy."

A spokesman for the semi-official group that coordinates the issuance of production permits for location shooting in Los Angeles has taken issue with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which said that the impasse in negotiations with the Screen Actors Guild had led to a "de facto strike" in Hollywood that had virtually shut down motion picture production. Todd Lindgren of FilmL.A. told the Associated Press that in the five-week period ending June 24, FilmL.A. obtained 21 permits, up from 13 during the same period a year ago. "I wouldn't say it is the de facto strike that the AMPTP has mentioned. ... We are seeing the opposite." Meanwhile, the Screen Actors Guild on Thursday stepped up its campaign to encourage members who also hold cards in the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists to reject a contract that AFTRA union leaders had negotiated with the AMPTP. Dual cardholders received an email message containing quotes from Sean Penn, Sandra Oh, Edward Asner, Justine Bateman, Anne-Marie Johnson, and Jobeth Williams denouncing the AFTRA deal. AFTRA has claimed that SAG has misrepresented the terms of the deal.

The nation's multiplexes are providing less variety to patrons than they once did and are instead running fewer movies on more screens, Chicago Tribune entertainment columnist Mark Caro observed today (Friday). He noted, for example, that while Chicago's River East multiplex boasts 21 screens, it is showing only 12 movies; another Chicago multiplex, 600 No. Michigan, is showing 13 movies on 30 screens. Caro comments,"And you wonder why movies don't hang around so long: It's because theater chains would rather overload their screens with the current 'greatest hits' than offer a wider selection of movies that actually might require some positive word-of-mouth."

On Wednesday, its first full day of release, Sony's Hancock took in $17.3 million and appeared to be in position to top $100 million by the end of the Independence Day weekend according to box-office trackers Media by Numbers. Combined with Tuesday-night preview screenings, the film has now taken in $24.1 million. While such results would normally be the kind studio executives dream about, they pale in comparison with those of last year's Transformers, which took in $27.8 million in its first full-day of release.

Less than two weeks after New York-based Kino International had announced that it had completed a frame-by-frame restoration of Fritz Lang's 1927 classic Metropolis and would release it in 2009, a long-lost and badly scratched original cut of the movie has turned up in Argentina, where it was shown to reporters for the first time on Thursday. Paula Felix-Didier, director of the Museo de Cine in Buenos Aires, told the reporters that the three-and-a-half-hour print is the only known copy of Lang's complete film. The film that has been shown in theaters since that time and which in recent years has become available on home video is roughly half that length. Kino said Thursday that it may include the newly discovered footage in its 2009 release.

Warner Bros. on Thursday spiked rumors that had spread over the Internet that, following the recent success of the movie version of Sex and the City a movie version of Friends was now in the works. The studio, which owns rights to the Friends shows, issued a statement in London, where the rumors originated, saying that there was "no truth to the story." The BBC also contacted representatives of some of the stars of the TV show, who also denied the reports. Lisa Kasteler, a spokesperson for Matthew Perry commented, "Nothing is happening. ... The rumor is false."

Viacom's efforts to keep its TV shows and movies off YouTube has resulted in a court ruling that could have profound implications for websites in general. Under the ruling the video website must turn over to Viacom the user names (but not the actual names) of every YouTube user, their IP addresses and a list of videos that each user has watched on YouTube. Under the ruling, the data would only be disclosed to Viacom and would not be made public. Google, which owns YouTube, expressed disappointment with the ruling but did not indicate whether it plans to appeal.

NBC is returning its chime signature -- the notes G, E, and C -- to the air for the first time since the late 1990s and will use them to tag all promos for network shows, the company said Thursday. (Interestingly the notes, which first aired on NBC Radio in 1929, were said to stand for the General Electric Corporation, then a primary owner of the network, along with RCA and Westinghouse. GE now owns 80 percent of NBC; the remaining 20 percent is owned by the French conglomerate Vivendi.) In an interview with Broadcasting and Cable, Jim Vescera, head of on-air advertising for The NBC Agency, said that the move to bring back the chimes was pushed by NBC Entertainment Co-chairman Ben Silverman. "We decided that we had ignored them long enough," he said.

The Discovery Channel on Thursday canceled plans to film a documentary inside the Dallas County Jail after a judge had granted county commissioners a temporary restraining order to halt the filming. Earlier in the week the commissioners had complained that Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez had not consulted them about her agreement to allow a film crew access to the jail and raised concerns about inmate privacy and the possibility of security breaches. In an editorial on Thursday the Dallas Morning News commented, "Perhaps the sheriff naively believed that her final-cut authority would ensure the positive publicity she craves, but she must have known it was no coincidence her jail was chosen. No matter what was filmed, this documentary would have mentioned that Dallas County jails have failed five consecutive state inspections - including all four on her watch - and remain under federal court order for neglect and indifference." Columnist James Ragland added, ""Sheriff, seriously, here's what most folks are saying: How about passing at least one state inspection before you start rolling out the red carpet for a film crew?"

While the American flag may be seen flying on television screens across the land and on the platforms of candidates for office on this holiday, the Chicago Sun-Times is defying political correctness by noting that the flag was not originally intended as a sacred symbol of the United States. Although on Independence Day television anchormen/women may feel obliged to sport a flag in their lapels, it was virtually unknown and unseen during the 18th century and never unfurled on any battlefield during the Revolutionary War -- despite later paintings to the contrary, the newspaper observed. It was originally intended merely to identify U.S. Navy ships. The Pledge of Allegiance, the Sun-Times noted, did not exist until 1892 -- and at the time was intended primarily as a ritual to ensure the loyalty of immigrants.

Larry Harmon, who made Bozo the Clown a veritable household institution in the 1950s, died Thursday in Los Angeles of congestive heart failure at age 83. Although he did not create the character, he purchased the copyright and trademark to the clown in the 1950s and "cloned" (his description) a number of Bozos who appeared on local kids shows during the days before television stations across the country were linked by coaxial cable or satellite. One of his Bozos was Willard Scott, who went on to become the longtime weatherman on NBC's Today show. Scott later wrote that when his Bozo show went off the air, "the local McDonald's people asked me to come up with a new character to take Bozo's place. So I sat down and created Ronald McDonald."

More than a month after reporting that Angelina Jolie had given birth to twins, Entertainment Tonight finally admitted on its website Thursday that it had "been given false information about the birth." It had not mentioned Jolie's name since reports appeared in early June alleging that ET had been duped by a person passing herself off as the actress's assistant, Holly Goline.