Three Books on Salman Rushdie are Mostly Disappointing

Some directors and distributors say the rating, often associated with hardcore pornography, amounts to de factor censorship of their movies -- many theaters won't play them, and advertising is hard to secure. MPAA President Jack Valenti, who invented the rating, director Wayne Wang, and Senior Vice President of Marketing Russell Schwartz respond to the controversy.

The jazz singer and pianist made a splash with his debut album two years ago. But despite Connick's success, jazz critic Kevin Whitehead is not impressed. He says the young musician apes Thelonious Monk and Frank Sinatra, and badly.

Rooker appears in two recently-released films -- the big budget action flick Days of Thunder, and the independently produced Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. He was born into a poor, predominantly white town in Alabama, and later moved to a black neighborhood in Chicago. After growing up among people working 15-hour days, it took Rooker until his early twenties to believe that acting could be a real job.