Critics are taking a paddle to the makers of Without a Paddle, giving the movie, a spoof of 1972's Deliverance, arguably the worst reviews of the summer. Stephen Holden in the New York Times calls it "loathsome." Ty Burr in the Boston Globe describes it as "moronic." Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post comments: "When it's not actively offending or annoying, it does have a few laughs of the God-am-I-really-laughing-at-this? variety." Sid Smith in the Chicago Tribune suggests that the film ought to be called "Without a Brain Cell." Megan Lehmann's review in the New York Post is headed "Without a Clue," and it concludes with the comment that the movie "never rises above the level of harmless video fare." Bob Strauss in the Los Angeles Daily News is the only major-market newspaper critic who gives the film a positive review, calling it "warm-hearted" and "a pleasant end-of-summer diversion that won't insult your intelligence." He then adds: "Too much, anyway."

The $500,000 shark movie Open Water will be getting into the swim of things with the big-budget fright films Alien Vs. Predator and Exorcist: The Beginning as it opens wide this weekend -- opens wide with teeth, that is. Critics are suggesting that the low-budget film packs far more scariness into its 80 minutes than the two other scary movies combined. ("It's also the longest 80 minutes you ever may spend in a movie theater," comments Bruce Westbrook in the Houston Chronicle, adding, "That's not because it's bad, but because it's good.") The movie, based on a true story about a couple who go scuba diving off a chartered boat and are left behind, left Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times with "the need to go outside and walk in the sunshine and try to cheer myself up" when it was over. Jami Bernard in the New York Daily News calls it "effectively unnerving." The Wall Street Journal's Joanne Kaufman was clearly unnerved, writing, "Open Water is so deeply terrifying, so primal in its depiction of man at the mercy of nature, that watching it shakes you to the core." A.O. Scott writes in the New York Times that the film "titillates us with the dread of (someone else's) exotic death, and teases us with the illusion that what we are watching is real." But Scott contends that it "fails to make us care as much as we should about the fate of its heroes." On the other hand, Jan Stuart in Newsday argues that what makes the those heroes "so interesting is that they are so stunningly uninteresting, like a couple in one of those black-and-white horror quickies from the 1950s, or Barbie and Ken dolls doing a Survivor-style TV stint." In that regard, Sid Smith in the Chicago Tribune produces the best line: "The deep has never been so creepy, nor, in some ways, the creeps so deep." But Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times keeps his contrarian reputation intact with his review of the movie, in which he asks, "Don't most people already know how indifferent the universe can be without having to sit through the suspenseful but increasingly unpleasant Open Water?"

The summer may have opened with a Shrek, but it is going out with plenty of shrieks, as a plethora of scary movies take over theater marquees. In addition to last weekend's box office champ, Alien Vs. Predator, there'll be Exorcist: The Beginning and Open Water, a movie that has been drawing big crowds in limited release and is expected to so the same as it opens wide today. In addition, there's the lowbrow comedy Without a Paddle, the return of Benji and, in limited release, the Sundance-lauded Garden State and Mexico's top box-office draw Nicotina.

Reviews for Exorcist: The Beginning were not forthcoming, since the studio declined to screen it for critics. But advance buzz has been horrifying. In fact Morgan Creek, which backed it, found itself producing two separate versions of the same film with the same star, Stellan Skarsgard. After reportedly shelling out $30 million for the original version, directed by Paul Schrader, the studio decided that Schrader's movie was not sufficiently scary and called in Renny Harlin, who promptly rewrote the script and reshot the movie at a cost of an additional $50 million. (Morgan Creek says it plans to release both versions when the DVD comes out.) Numerous film writers have pointed out that the film has been bedeviled by mishaps from the outset, including the death of its original director, John Frankenheimer, the withdrawal of its original star, Liam Neeson, and an auto accident that landed Harlin in the hospital with a crushed leg during the making of the film.

Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment has scheduled Nov. 30 as the release date of the Spider-Man 2 DVD. The original Spider-Man movie landed in video stores in October and ultimately took in $400 million in sales and rentals, matching what the movie did theatrically.

The motion picture and recording industries suffered a severe setback Thursday in their legal onslaught against peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks when a U.S. appellate court ruled unanimously that even though the networks may be used primarily for piracy, they are not automatically liable for copyright infringement. The decision upheld a lower court ruling that had been appealed by the MPAA, the RIAA, and the National Music Publishers Association. The defendants in the lawsuit were the operators of the Grokster, Morpheus, and Kazaa P2P networks. In upholding the lower-court order, Judge Sidney R. Thomas wrote that "new technology is always disruptive to old markets" particularly in the case of copyrighted works that are "sold through well-established distribution mechanisms." He went on to say that history had shown that market forces ordinarily force a restructuring of those mechanisms resulting in a balancing of interests. He also pointed out that the P2P networks "are capable of substantial noninfringing uses." Therefore, he concluded, "we decline to expand contributory copyright liability in the manner that the copyright owners request." Movie and recording industry representatives were outraged by the decision. Bo Anderson, president of the Video Software Dealers Association, said, "Congress should ... quickly legislate a solution that will stop the courts from turning a blind eye to theft accomplished through peer-to-peer networks." Such legislation is already in the works.

Tom Brokaw has taken umbrage with remarks by Janet Brown, executive director of the debate commission, that the nightly news anchors of the major networks were not suitable to moderate the presidential and vice presidential debates because "they would overshadow the events." Brown made her remarks last Friday in an interview in the New York Times, in which she also said, "It's important for the moderators to focus attention on the candidates." In a letter to Brown that was disclosed in today's (Friday) New York Daily News, Brokaw said that the Times account "leaves the undeniable impression that you believe if we were moderators, we'd be preening, egocentric performers. ... I deeply resent that implication." He pointed out that he himself has interviewed candidates for the presidency on numerous occasions and "Not once did candidates, campaigns or press critics suggest I was more concerned with my role than with the role of the candidates." Regarding the commission's decision to select ABC's Charles Gibson, CBS's Bob Schieffer and PBS's Jim Lehrer and Gwen Ifill as moderators, Brokaw said: "I am particularly outraged that the commission failed to choose anyone from NBC News personnel for a moderator's role. ... For a commission that has assumed primary power in the exercise of the democratic process, you have a peculiarly autocratic style."

Sony said Thursday that it plans to introduce in November two new television models for home theater systems that will provide the sharpest and brightest HDTV pictures ever. The two models -- one with a 40-inch screen, the other with a 46-inch screen -- will employ a new type of semiconductor for picture clarity and a light-emitting diode backlighting system. The breakthrough technology comes at a cost. The smaller model will have a suggested retail price of $7,675.00, while the larger will have an SRP of $10,050.00. "Sony's taken a huge lead over the competition with this LED technology," said Masahiko Ishino, an analyst at Mitsubishi Securities, told Bloomberg News. "Televisions are the heart and soul of consumer-electronics makers, and Sony has shown they're back on top."

Michael Jackson has denounced the recent VH1 movie about him, Man in the Mirror, starring Flex Alexander, which critics had generally described as "pro-Jackson." The Hollywood Reporter faulted it "for studiously [soft-peddling] most instances of Jackson's bizarre behavior and famed eccentricity." The Los Angeles Times' Robert Lloyd concluded that the film, which aired on Aug. 6, "goes pretty easy on him overall, making him out to be more of a sad victim than, say, a perverted creep." Nevertheless, in his statement on Thursday Jackson maintained that the movie "in no way, shape, or form, represents who we are as a family. It is unfortunate that for years, we have been targets of completely inaccurate and false portrayals. We have watched as we have been vilified and humiliated. I, personally, have suffered through many hurtful lies and references to me as 'Wacko Jacko' as well as the latest untruth about me fathering quadruplets. This is intolerable and must stop."

NBC News has assigned NBC Nightly News producer Steve Capus to act as a kind of "news producer in waiting" in Athens should a terrorist attack or other big story arise there during the course of the Summer Olympics, the Associated Press reported today (Friday). Capus heads a contingent of 250 NBC News employees assigned to Athens for the Olympics, 100 more than were on hand in Sydney four years ago. "The news division has to play the game of 'what if, '" Capus told the wire service. "We have to plan out if something happens and, if it does happen, what are we going to do about it? Sports is here to cover the things that are, by and large, predictable."

The Republicans are allowing al-Jazeera to have something at their convention that the Democrats did not -- a sign identifying them outside their skybox at Madison Square Garden in New York. Lenny Alcivar, a spokesman for the convention, said that the Arab news network was being treated like other networks with skyboxes. A spokeswoman for al-Jazeera, Stephanie Thomas, said that it was "delighted and thrilled" by the decision.

CBS plans on-air auditions for a string of potential hosts to replace Craig Kilborn when The Late Late Show launches its new season on Sept. 20, the New York Daily News reported today (Friday). Nevertheless, who they will be remains up in the air. "Nothing has been set yet," the newspaper quoted a source close to the production as saying. "No guest hosts have been booked." Among those considered to have the best hopes of landing the job, the newspaper indicated, are Vince Vaughn, Chris Rock, Jon Cryer, George Lopez, and Bonnie Hunt.

Regis Philbin has landed in the Guinness Book of World Records with the record for the most number of hours in front of a television camera -- 15,188. He replaces the retired Hugh Downs for the record.