Dylan Mcdermott

9 tonight TNT Carter (Dylan McDermott, right) and the team stage a jailbreak for the younger brother of a notorious antigovernment militia leader in a bid to locate the fanatic before he assassinates a federal judge.

Most people won't take much notice of the fact that Aria, one of the year's most unusual films, featuring the work of 10 directors, is being released on video this week. It's a little tough to get attention when your competition is the most popular movie ever made: E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial. E.T. - THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982) (MCA) $24.95. 115 minutes. Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Peter Coyote, Robert McNaughton, Drew Barrymore. Thomas is wonderful as the 10-year-old who befriends E.T., the creature from outer space stranded in a California suburb - and E.T. isn't bad himself, especially after he's had one too many beers.

The character of Dirk Diggler, the central figure in Boogie Nights, was inspired by John Holmes, the real-life porn star who is the central figure in the misbegotten Wonderland. Any comparison of the two films begins and ends there. For while Boogie Nights was a dirge for the death of pleasure (which coincided with the death of the porn-film industry), Wonderland is death warmed over. Literally. From three unreliable perspectives, Wonderland, which stars Val Kilmer as Holmes on the downslope of his celebrity, tells the story of the slaughter on Wonderland Avenue high in the Hollywood Hills during the stifling summer of 1981.

The brood of fated-love movies that "Sleepless in Seattle" spawned several years ago continues with the late-arriving " 'Til There Was You," another comedy about convoluted romantic destiny. Jeanne Tripplehorn and Dylan McDermott star as two lovers, a la "Sleepless," destined to meet but separated by circumstances until the final moments of the movie. This creates obvious story problems - a love story between two people who are rarely together. "Sleepless" solved these problems with unbeatable light-comedy leads, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, and Nora Ephron's wisecracking script.

Sitting through "Hardware" is a painful experience. Not because of its unremitting grimness, grotesque violence, derivative plot or unearned smugness, although those all supply grounds for wincing. What really hurts are the fast fades from murky dark to pulsating light, the strobe and clutter production design, and the cacaphonous machine-noise soundtrack. "Hardware" literally assaults the senses while brutalizing the sensibilities. To get an R rating, director John Stanley had to trim a few spurts from a scene in which a man is cut in two by mechanical doors.

"Miracle on 34th Street" isn't what you hoped to find under the Christmas tree. But it's better than an empty box. This is a kinder, gentler John Hughes at work as producer-writer. The creator of "Home Alone," "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" and "Dennis the Menace" has abandoned the violence-as-slapstick format that makes kids howl and parents cringe. In its place, he substitutes a slooooow retelling of the 1947 classic about a white-bearded man who claims to be Kris Kringle, a dubious child and her cynical mother, and the evil district attorney (J.T.

In "The Cowboy Way," Woody Harrelson gives us some indication of how he came by that first name. The specifics cannot be discussed in a family newspaper. Or even the Daily News. It's enough to say that in one particular scene, John Wayne Bobbitt could not have performed as Harrelson's stunt double. No indeed. Nor would there be any way to substitute a stunt man for Harrelson in the scene in question, since Harrelson is wearing nothing but a cowboy hat. He manages to suspend the hat above the ground without using any of the usual extremities.

THE PRACTICE, Channel 6, 10 p.m. tomorrow. Last season, "The Practice" engaged in some histrionic flights of fancy not as many or as bizarre as David E. Kelley's other series, "Ally McBeal," but just enough to give viewers mild cause for concern. No need to worry. If anything, the first three episodes of the legal drama's fifth season show it to be in better shape than last season. Bobby (Dylan McDermott) and Eugene (Steve Harris) defend an accused murderer (Bruce Davison)

Game-show host Alex Trebek, 71, has suffered a mild heart attack. The genial host of a lotta Jeopardy! episodes is expected to recover and be ready for new epis, which start recording in July, say reps at Sony Television. You go, Alex baby. Getting Better for $10,000!!   We'd jump for that SideShow favorite Ann Curry, cohost of NBC's Today, is being pressed to quit because of stinky ratings. Now the New York Post reports the Big Peacock is dangling a $10 million golden bungee cord to scram.

I ASKED members of this year's Daily News Everybody's a Critic panel to weigh in on their favorite new shows and to share their worries about the ones that might not make it. Here's what some had to say: "I am totally riveted by 'American Horror [Story],' " wrote Janet Brinkman of South Philadelphia, who also gave props to Showtime's "Homeland. " "Each week is crazier than the next, but I need to know what's next. " " 'Homeland' is the best new show in quality by far. But 'American Horror Story' has the best viewing experience, as it is fun to trash it when it's at its worst and yet easy to obsess over in moments when it is a very guilty pleasure," wrote Robert Dougherty, of Northeast Philadelphia, who's saving his cancellation concerns for "established cult favorites 'Community' and 'Fringe.' " Other fans of the FX hit: Center City's Craig Liggeons, who likes ABC's "Revenge" even more, for its "quick payoffs, and a potentially damning 'Oh, man, she's caught!

There's despicable. And then there's television. If there's a grubby way to make a buck, TV yearns to be friends with benefits. For a few years now, American Idol has been taping contestants at screenings of Fox films that are about to open. It's been a halfhearted promotional scheme, a time-killer on the way to the next Ford commercial. But there is nothing so bad that TV cannot make it worse. Last week on Survivor: South Pacific , the tribe that won the challenge was taken to a brightly lit tropical theater for a screening of the DOA Adam Sandler comedy Jack and Jill . Would you like palm oil on that popcorn?

Believe it or not, the title of FX's new series, American Horror Story , is actually an understatement. Grotesque, terrifying, brutal, and kinky, American Horror Story makes The Shining look like The Waltons . "It's really amazing to me that this is on television and not on film," says horror expert Marina Levina, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Memphis. "I've been really surprised at how far they've been able to take things.

* AMERICAN HORROR STORY. 10 tonight, FX. * GEORGE HARRISON: LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD. 9 tonight and tomorrow, HBO.   IN A COUNTRY full of people stuck in houses they can't afford and can't sell, you don't have to look far to find a horror story. The American Dream-turned-nightmare isn't nearly scary enough for "Glee" producers Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, whose latest production, FX's "American Horror Story," mines its blood-spattered genre for one cliche after another to tell the story of a couple whose lack of due diligence - starting with a failure to Google their prospective new address - results in the worst case of buyer's remorse since the Lutz family moved into that house in Amityville.

You've never seen anything like American Horror Story on TV before. And you may not want to see it now. But fans of the horror genre - not the splatter trash of the Saw or Chainsaw Massacre series, but the creepy, psychological, and, yes, sexy, gory stuff of classics like Rosemary's Baby or The Shining - won't be disappointed. FX, still No. 1 on basic cable for challenging, edgy material, has teamed up again with Nip/Tuck's Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuck on Horror Story, which premieres Wednesday at 10 p.m. The pair, also responsible for Fox's Glee, have a tendency to start strongly and then get a little lost, but that needn't concern us here, since we're at the beginning, and Horror Story is as gripping as anything on TV. You may find yourself looking for something to grip when the doll (or are they real?

DURING HOLLYWOOD'S glory days, the biggest stars - Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart, etc. - wouldn't be caught dead in a horror movie. In 2011, however, horror is no longer a scary word for actors. Mr. James Bond himself, Daniel Craig, stars with his wife and Oscar winner Rachel Weisz in "Dream House," which opens today. That was Colin Farrell biting necks in August's "Fright Night," while Oscar winner Benicio Del Toro became the Wolfman in 2010. On TV, FX's new series "American Horror Story" will feature such names as Dylan McDermott, Jessica Lange and Frances Conroy.

Inquirer television critic Jonathan Storm is reporting from the television critics' press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif. These items are taken from his blog "Eye of the Storm," at www.philly.com/eyeofthestorm .   CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler did a verbal tap dance for the nation's TV critics at their annual summer meeting Wednesday, refusing to recap the network's machinations dealing with the meltdown of ...

9 tonight TNT The team goes after a home-invasion crew with Alex and Carter (Tricia Helfer, Dylan McDermott) acting as the bait and Ty (Omari Hardwick, right) pretending to be a thief. Unfortunately, things go terribly wrong.