Ewan Mcgregor

IT SEEMS AS IF the nooky has finally caught up with Snooki . The "Jersey Shore" breakout sensation, who's about to start a new spinoff with J-Woww , is reportedly pregnant. O-Woww. Is MTV going to change the name to "Snooki and JWoww and a Bambino vs. the World"? It's hard to guess who first broke the story of the Snook's pregnancy, because the rumors and denials have been going on for weeks. Now Snooki says, per TMZ. com, that she lied about being with child because she wanted to get through her first trimester and not jinx anything.

THE EARLY leader for the Worst Title of the Year award is surely "Salmon Fishing in Yemen. " The words seem designed to alienate as many viewers as possible, while pandering to the world's smallest subset of hobbyists. (Remember the bird-watching comedy "The Big Year?" Of course you don't.) There is another audience for the movie, of course, and it's anyone who finds Emily Blunt adorable, which is everyone. "Fishing" features Blunt in "Young Victoria" mode, in a decidedly old-fashioned romance that replaces modern-day vulgarity with the decorum of formal courtship.

Late Show With David Letterman (11:35 p.m., CBS3) - Bill Maher; Nikki Reed; Drake performs. The Tonight Show With Jay Leno (11:35 p.m., NBC10) - Howie Mandel; Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi; Patrick Stump. Jimmy Kimmel Live (12:35 a.m., 6ABC) - Dancing With the Stars castoff; Christina Perri. The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson (12:37 a.m., CBS3) Ewan McGregor; Jeff Cesario; Paula Poundstone.

Beginners This charming journey through the tunnel of grief into the sunshine of connectedness stars Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, and the cutest Jack Russell terrier imaginable as a father, son, and dog who lose partners and find love. R Midnight in Paris What's Owen Wilson doing in a Woody Allen movie? Ingratiating himself in this convivial fantasy about a hack writer who time-travels to Paris' Left Bank of the 1920s and is inspired by American and Spanish expatriates.

If "Braveheart's" William Wallace had looked into the future, to the morally and spiritually blighted 1990s Edinburgh we see in "Trainspotting," he might have taken his giant broadsword and chopped off his own head. Though Wallace fought to make Scotland free for succeeding generations, he probably did not intend to bequeath his country to a generation of strung-out junkies who steal, lie, cheat, and swindle their own parents (and each other) to support an all-consuming heroin habit.

We can no longer use the term "can't-miss" to describe the previously fertile collaboration of director Danny Boyle and actor Ewan McGregor. The two men, who teamed for the clever black comedy "Shallow Grave" and the widely praised heroin drama "Trainspotting," fail miserably with "A Life Less Ordinary," an attempt to recapture the daffy magic of the classic Hollywood screwball comedies of yesteryear. Their inspiration is "It Happened One Night" (right down to the famous hitchhiking scene)

If you've ever wanted to see the people on MTV's "The Real World" go mad and attack each other with knives and power drills - and who hasn't? - then the darkly funny "Shallow Grave" is for you. This very black comedy begins with three grievously self-centered Glasgow professionals, all roommates in a spacious apartment, interviewing candidates to fill an empty fourth bedroom and help with the rent. The three of them - a sarcastic reporter (Ewan McGregor), a frosty physician (Kerry Fox)

Since entertainment industry superpowers have evidently designated Gwyneth Paltrow as the Next Big Thing, then it seems almost seditious to point out that if she is, you sure couldn't prove it by "Emma" This dull, confusing period version of Jane Austen's novel (the subject of a far livelier modern adaptation in "Clueless" ) gives Paltrow her first starring movie role, but little else to go on. This is no knock on Paltrow, who's already proven she's a good actress. She made a vivid impression in the eccentric "Flesh and Bone," playing a Midwestern grifter.

"Brassed Off" is one movie that truly deserves to be called an ensemble piece. It's actually about an ensemble - an amateur brass band in the working-class English village of Grimley, where the factory bosses are preparing to close the coal mine that is the community's economic heart and soul. Most of the men who play in the band are miners, and as it becomes increasingly likely that the mine will close, their commitment to just about everything, including music, begins to wane.

FEE FIE HO-HUM, you smell another medieval Game of Clones - an over-inflated fairy tale along the lines of "Snow White and the Huntsman" or "Red Riding Hood. " The new one is called "Jack the Giant Slayer," a 3-D spectacle almost as massively budgeted as "The Hobbit," and directed by Bryan Singer ("Superman," "X-Men") - credentials that establish expectations of another pointlessly supersize bedtime story. And the movie does suffer a bit from giganticism. But, in "Jack's" defense, it's about giants.

'Fear takes us to so many different places," Naomi Watts says. "You can't really judge. One person's suffering is going to manifest itself differently than another's. " The Australian actress is mulling how different people react in the face of catastrophe. Some summon up untapped courage, generosity, selflessness. And then there's the guy in The Impossible , the film Watts stars in with Ewan McGregor - based on the real-life ordeal of a family that is literally swept away in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami - who won't lend out his cellphone.

The new DVD releases this week are mid-range in quality. New Year's Eve, Grade C: Veteran director Garry Marshall has dusted off the bland formula he used in Valentine's Day - multiple story lines played out by a gaggle of big stars - to make New Year's Eve. It's a different day, but Marshall makes the same mistakes. The film plods along because of lackluster directing, a banal script, and wooden acting. It's not only Katherine Fugate's uninspired script that makes this such a bland offering.

Bee Gees brother Robin Gibb has shaken off his night fever and is stayin' alive. According to the BBC, Gibb's doctor at the London Clinic, Dr. Andrew Thillainayagam, said the longtime pop star was conscious, lucid and talking with his loved ones. Gibb, who is amazingly only 62 considering the Bee Gees had hits in the 1960s, had been in a coma for 12 days. Dr. T. said that Gibb was tired but that "it is testament to [his] extraordinary courage, iron will and deep reserves of physical strength that he has overcome quite incredible odds to get where he is now. " Gibb had been battling colon and liver cancer, which was thought to be in remission, when he got pneumonia because of his weakened immune system.

Conan (11 p.m., TBS) - Ewan McGregor; David Mizejewski; comic Dana Gould. Late Show With David Letterman (11:35 p.m., CBS3) - Michelle Obama; Esperanza Spalding performs. The Tonight Show With Jay Leno (11:35 p.m., NBC10) - Jamie Lee Curtis; Armie Hammer; Robert Glasper Experiment. Jimmy Kimmel Live (midnight, 6ABC) - Jessica Simpson; Gael Garcia Bernal.

'Chemistry is a strange thing," Emily Blunt says, and she's not talking about the periodic table. "You either have it or you don't. And I do think it translates onto screen when you have a great rapport with someone offscreen. " That someone is Ewan McGregor - a fellow Brit and Blunt's leading man in the whimsical romantic comedy Salmon Fishing in the Yemen . The two stars had never crossed paths before - not even a howdy-do at a party or premiere - when Lasse Hallström , the film's director, put them together.

THE EARLY leader for the Worst Title of the Year award is surely "Salmon Fishing in Yemen. " The words seem designed to alienate as many viewers as possible, while pandering to the world's smallest subset of hobbyists. (Remember the bird-watching comedy "The Big Year?" Of course you don't.) There is another audience for the movie, of course, and it's anyone who finds Emily Blunt adorable, which is everyone. "Fishing" features Blunt in "Young Victoria" mode, in a decidedly old-fashioned romance that replaces modern-day vulgarity with the decorum of formal courtship.

"THE DEVIL Wears Prada" made Meryl Streep a hot box office commodity, and was a nice showcase for star Anne Hathaway. But think back to when you first saw it, to the performance that really jumped out at you, to the question on everyone's lips when they left the theater - who was that British girl? Her name is Emily Blunt, and she readily acknowledges that "Prada" launched her to top-of-the-marquee stardom, the title character in "Young Victoria," romantic lead to Matt Damon in "The Adjustment Bureau," to Jason Segel in next month's rom-com "The Five-Year Engagement," to Ewan McGregor in "Salmon Fishing in Yemen," opening today.

IT SEEMS AS IF the nooky has finally caught up with Snooki . The "Jersey Shore" breakout sensation, who's about to start a new spinoff with J-Woww , is reportedly pregnant. O-Woww. Is MTV going to change the name to "Snooki and JWoww and a Bambino vs. the World"? It's hard to guess who first broke the story of the Snook's pregnancy, because the rumors and denials have been going on for weeks. Now Snooki says, per TMZ. com, that she lied about being with child because she wanted to get through her first trimester and not jinx anything.

You know how Jar-Jar Binks' eyes pop up out of his head? That was from watching too many 3-D movies back on planet Naboo. So, be forewarned. George Lucas has done a stereoscopic retrofit of his 1999 prequel, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace , and it's being released in theaters Friday. Arguably the lamest installment in the " long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away" canon, the new 3-D version was not previewed in advance for critics, and really, why should it have been?