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The 'Hazzard' of reviews

What's in a name?

By Todd Leopold
CNN

Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott are good ol' boys for the new millennium in "The Dukes of Hazzard."

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(CNN) -- I think it was Broadway impresario David Merrick who once advertised a show using blurbs from people who had the same names as New York theater critics.

People looking at the ad quickly would either assume the people were the real critics, or they would do a double-take before laughing at the ad's cheek.

At the time New York had seven newspapers. A copy editor at one of them spotted the ruse, spread the word to the other papers and the ad was pulled from all but one edition. But Merrick got his wish -- all kinds of publicity for his show.

So I couldn't help but think of Merrick's gambit when I saw, in Sunday's New York Times, an ad for "The Dukes of Hazzard." At the very top was a blurb raving about the movie.

The name under the quote? Jimmy Carter.

Now, in the ad's defense, it did say that this Jimmy Carter was affliated with a Nashville, Tennessee, TV station. And indeed there is a Jimmy Carter who fits this description. (He even has a Web site: http://www.askjimmycarter.com .)

But my first thought was, the former president is endorsing "The Dukes of Hazzard"?

These days, I'm not sure that would help or hurt a movie's prospects. But it definitely would make life interesting.

Now, if only Millard Fillmore would offer his take on "Fantastic Four."

Eye on Entertainment pops a wheelie.

Eye-opener

What can you say about "The Dukes of Hazzard"?

The original TV show was like a live-action Road Runner cartoon crossed with "Smokey and the Bandit." (Or maybe it was just a dumbed-down version of "Smokey and the Bandit," period. Make your own joke here.)

The original series featured Tom Wopat (Luke Duke), who has put together a fine career as a stage actor; John Schneider (Bo Duke), who followed the show with a successful country music career and a role in "Smallville"; Ben Jones (Cooter), who was a Georgia congressman for many years; Denver Pyle (Uncle Jesse); James Best (Roscoe P. Coltrane); and Sorrell Booke (Boss Hogg), a Yale- and Columbia-educated actor from Buffalo, New York, who once worked as a counterintelligence officer (according to an Internet Movie Database biography) but probably made more money as the foolish, sputtering Hogg than he ever did doing anything else.

And, of course, Catherine Bach, whose character's name (Daisy Duke) became attached to the distinctive, extremely skimpy cutoff shorts she often wore.

The movie's Luke and Bo are played by Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott, respectively. Boss Hogg is played by Burt Reynolds, and Daisy Duke is Jessica Simpson. The Broken Lizard comedy troupe's Jay Chandrasekhar handled the directing.

The plot concerns ... oh, heck, what it always concerns: the boys getting on the wrong side of Boss Hogg, Boss Hogg seeking revenge, the boys winning and the General Lee snorting its horn.

The advance reviews have called the movie mediocre at best. My favorite is Devin Faraci's from the CHUD.com Web site: "Burt Reynolds fired his agent after 'Boogie Nights.' If he has a lick of sense in his head, he'll kill his agent after 'Dukes of Hazzard.' "

"The Dukes of Hazzard" opens Friday. The movie is a product of Warner Bros., which -- like CNN and the Road Runner -- is owned by Time Warner.

On screen

On the far end of the spectrum away from "The Dukes of Hazzard" is the new Jim Jarmusch film, "Broken Flowers." Bill Murray stars as a man who travels cross-country talking to old girlfriends and trying to determine which one of them may have given birth to a son he's never known. His co-stars include Sharon Stone, Jessica Lange, Julie Delpy, Tilda Swinton and Frances Conroy. Opens Friday in limited release.

Don't be put off by the somewhat grotesque title of "The Chumscrubber." The film actually concerns pop culture and life in a fictional town (the Chumscrubber is a popular TV and video character in the movie), and has a cast that includes Glenn Close, Ralph Fiennes, Carrie-Anne Moss, Rita Wilson and Jamie Bell (who played "Billy Elliot" in that 2000 film). Word from Sundance, where it played in January, was excellent. It opens in limited release Friday.

On the tube

The subject of food obsession may not seem funny, but a new FX series is trying it on for size ... so to speak. "Starved," starring Eric Schaeffer, premieres 10 p.m. ET Thursday; it's succeeded by another new comedy, "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," at 10:30 p.m.

Another unlikely sitcom, "Weeds," premieres Sunday. The show stars Mary-Louise Parker as a mother trying to maintain her middle-class lifestyle after her husband dies. So she sells pot. 11 p.m. ET Sunday, Showtime.

Sound waves

The Fleshtones' new album, "Beachhead" (Yep Roc), comes out Tuesday.

Tim Ries jazzes up -- literally -- several Rolling Stones songs, including "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and "Paint It Black," on "The Rolling Stones Project" (Concord Jazz). It comes out Tuesday.

Paging readers

Anne Rivers Siddons' new novel, "Sweetwater Creek" (HarperCollins), comes out Tuesday.

Chris Cleave's novel "Incendiary" (Knopf) already has garnered publicity for its plot -- the book, which was written well before current news events, concerns a suicide bombing in London, the city's transformation and a woman writing to Osama bin Laden. It comes out Monday.

Video center

Statler and Waldorf may not think much of it, but "The Muppet Show (Season One)" comes out on DVD Tuesday.

Perhaps the blackest and most cynical TV series ever, "Profit" -- a show with no heroes, about a man (Adrian Pasdar) raised by television who is coolly and viciously working his way up the corporate ladder -- gets its entire run (four aired episodes, three unaired episodes and a two-hour pilot) on DVD Tuesday.