Entertainment Today: Showbiz News

JACKSON: AWARDS 'NOT WHY YOU DO THE JOB'

Director Peter Jackson says having his film, "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," earn 13 Oscar nominations last year was "nice," but dismisses the Academy Award campaigning process as "pretty political."

In New York to promote his sequel "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" this week, the beloved New Zealander wore shorts and a T-shirt and stomped barefoot around Manhattan's posh Regency Hotel.

"I don't regard awards as being that critical or important," Jackson admitted to United Press International. "They're nice. Awards and nominations are nice, is what they are. It's very nice to have your peers, other filmmakers, thinking that you did a good job. It's certainly not why you do the job.

"I was in the middle of it last year. I certainly thought the Oscar campaigning got pretty political, and it was quite unpleasant actually," he said. "I made a promise to myself that if I get nominated this year or any year in the future, I'm just not going to get involved in the campaigning. It was like a presidential race."

Jackson better brace himself, however. Critics and preview audiences are calling his second Tolkien adventure even more breath-taking and spectacular than the first, generating Oscar buzz three months before the famed awards ceremony.

BRECKIN MEYER TO VOICE 'PINOCCHIO'

Audiences watching the English-language version of Roberto Benigni's new movie, "Pinocchio," will not be hearing the Italian superstar's voice.

Reportedly unhappy with the English version he spent two weeks dubbing, Benigni pulled his voice from the film and hired "Road Trip" star Breckin Meyer to replace him, reports the World Entertainment News Network. The voice of Benigni's wife, Nicoletta Braschi, also was replaced by American actress Glenn Close.

Braschi plays the Blue Fairy in the film. Other English-speaking stars brought in to speak for European actors include Queen Latifah and Eddie Griffin.

The classic fantasy fable, which Benigni also directed, already has broken box-office records in Italy. It is scheduled for release in the United States this Christmas.

'TAKEN' BREAKS SCI-FI RATINGS RECORD

The folks at the Sci Fi Channel are over the moon after seeing the ratings for their $40 million alien epic, "Steven Spielberg Presents Taken."

The first two nights of the 20-hour, 10-night series have earned the cable network work its best ratings ever, Variety reports.

"We're ecstatic about the numbers," said Darryl Frank, co-head of DreamWorks TV, which produced the show for Sci Fi.

The trade paper says DreamWorks and the Sci Fi Channel might consider making "Taken" a regularly scheduled series if the numbers stay strong.

On its two-hour opening night, Monday at 9, "Taken" was watched by 3.9 million households (6.14 million viewers), more than any other individual program since Sci Fi debuted in September 1992.

"Taken" also beat the previous Sci Fi Channel record, earned by the first part of the mini "Frank Herbert's Dune," by 28 percent.

The series' second installment of "Taken" showed only a modest falloff to a still gaudy 3.29 million households (4.84 million viewers). It is worth noting the second episode of the mini was up against the MTV phenomenon "The Osbournes" Tuesday night.

The first 10 hours of "Taken" conclude Friday, but Sci Fi will repeat them twice on the weekend in a marathon for anyone who missed one or more episodes. The cable channel will run the show in a similar pattern next week, with the final two hours airing Dec. 13. All 20 hours will air over the Dec. 14-15 weekend.

MOON ROCK LANDS IN N.Y. MUSEUM

A never-before-displayed moon rock is now on exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History. On loan from NASA, the rock was installed at the museum's Rose Center for Earth and Space.

The light-brown, coarse-grained mare basalt rock was found on the moon, south of the Apollo 15 landing site, says a museum spokesperson. The rock is one piece of the 380 kilograms of lunar material NASA astronauts brought home from the moon between 1969 and 1972.

For those a little rusty in geology, basalts are dense, dark-colored volcanic rocks that occur on the moon and on Earth, and are the main volcanic rocks of the islands of Hawaii and of Iceland. Lunar basalts are direct evidence of basaltic magmas that erupted on the surface of the moon and account for the dark areas of the moon's surface we can see from Earth.

CAGE BUYS HOUSE IN THE BIG EASY

While shooting his first film, "Sonny," in New Orleans recently, director Nicolas Cage found a unique way to circumvent the strict codes regulating the interior renovation of historic homes belonging to the city: he simply bought himself one.

"New Orleans is almost like a historical landmark and because of that you have a lot of controls put on you not to change anything," he explained to United Press International. "So, buying the house facilitated me in a lot of ways... I haven't really been back in a while, but I was able to design my sets and change the paint on the walls and get very customized about how the movie should look and so much of it was shot in the house.

"The restaurant, Antoine's, was in the house, the entire interior of Jewel's (Brenda Blethyn's character) home is in the house, so it gave us a lot more control, which is really the reason why I did it. I don't know what I'm going to do now with it!" he said.

"Sonny" opens Dec. 27.