E! online reports a new Headmaster Dumbledore has been named to replace Richard Harris, who died in October, in forthcoming Harry Potter movies: Michael Gambon, who picked up Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for his virtuoso performance as Lyndon Johnson in HBO’s Path to War, will be donning the robes …

I have a very weird feeling about this: The Who, meaning Townshend, Daltrey and friends, are attempting to record again for the first time in 20 years (and that one doesn’t really count anyway). I have been very vocal about excoriating the Who (and others) for continuing to tour under …

USA Today lists the five entertainers who they say had the worst 2002: Whitney Houston Defining moment: ”Crack is whack.” Recap: When Whitney Houston said those words to Diane Sawyer on national television, it became one of the next day’s most repeated phrases. Houston was saying she didn’t use crack, …

Master P gets slapped with substantial punitive damages for using woman’s voice without her permission: Rapper and producer Master P was ordered to pay $105,000 in punitive damages to a grandmother whose voice was secretly recorded and used to introduce a cut on artist Magic’s album “Sky’s the Limit.” Superior …

Publishers Weekly daily newsletter lists the consensus best books of 2002 based upon a survey of the Atlantic Monthly, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, the Christian Science Monitor, Entertainment Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and the Village Voice: Fiction: Atonement by Ian McEwan (Doubleday/Nan Talese, …

In our holiday lassitude we have failed to honor the contributions of the great director and Entertainer George Roy Hill, 81, who died Friday of complications from Parkinson’s disease. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was the first “adult” film I can remember seeing – at the drive-in with my …

MSNBC offers a visual taste of 2002 with music and narration. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll want to punch something. With war very much on the horizon, 2002 looks like a calm before a great storm.

Fascinating new Pew study – “Counting On the Internet“: With over 60% of Americans now having Internet access and 40% of Americans having been online for more than three years, the Internet has become a mainstream information tool. Its popularity and dependability have raised all Americans’ expectations about the information …

McDonald’s is having problems for the first time since it went public in the ’60s – in the US I would attribute this to maturing taste. A NY Times editorial correctly identifies the chain’s original appeal: American companies exported this standardization to a world of consumers grateful for the promise …

As an entertainment news and reviews site we are keenly interested in, indeed directly affected by, copyright politics and have been following these issues since our inception in August. We are deeply gratified to find the mainstream media attending to the matter as well, and after taking the media industry’s …