TITLE: THE BEST INTENTIONS DIRECTOR: BILLE AUGUST WRITER: INGMAR BERGMAN THE BOTTOM LINE: Bergman's back and Bille's got him, for a handsome soap opera with a radiant star performance. Ingmar Bergman used to say, "I make each film as if it were my last." The < astringent passion he poured into his metaphysical melodramas -- The Seventh Seal, Persona, Autumn Sonata and many others -- testifies to that truth. So no one thought Bergman was kidding when in 1983 he ...

Cases before the House ethics committee are stacking up like planes at Washington's National Airport, and so are the embarrassments for Congress. After the committee investigates Georgia Republican Newt Gingrich for a questionable book deal, it must consider Ohio Republican Donald Lukens, convicted in May of having sex with a 16-year-old girl. Then it will weigh the case of Illinois Democrat Gus Savage, accused of fondling an unwilling Peace Corps volunteer during a March trip to Zaire. Last week the ...

A powerful preventive against pneumonia, influenza and other respiratory diseases may be promised by a brilliant series of experiments conducted during the last three years at the University of Chicago's Billings Hospital. Dr. Oswald Hope Robertson last week was making final tests with a new germicidal vapor—propylene glycol—to sterilize air. If the results so far obtained are confirmed, one of the age-old searches of man will finally achieve its goal. The idea of sterilizing the air is not new —London's ...

The creators of the british comic strip Judge Dredd imagined Mega-City One as a colossal metropolis in the postapocalyptic near future stretching from Boston to Washington, home to 400 million people living in 200-story blocks. Baden Powell Drive is a highway linking South Africa's historic wine country and the tin-shack township of Khayelitsha outside Cape Town, with wide verges favored by prostitutes and goats. Yet here, in four giant hangars by the roadside, a crew and a cast of hundreds ...

The American dream for me, growing up in India in the 1970s, looked something like the opening credits of Dallas. The blockbuster TV series began with a kaleidoscope of big, brassy, sexy images — tracts of open land, shiny skyscrapers, fancy cars, cowboy businessmen and the very dreamy Victoria Principal. We watched bootlegged copies of the show, passed around on old Betamax cassettes. America seemed dazzling and larger than life, especially set against the stagnant backdrop ...

It's been a Monty Python world lately -- and we're not even talking about the absurdity and silliness of current events, such as balloon boys and confessional celebrities. No, it's a Python world on TV, with the lads being showcased in an multipart IFC documentary -- which started this week -- and re-airing of their classic TV episodes and movies. Last week, the paparazzi were out in New York to see the group, a bunch of self-confessed silly old ...

Legendary wrestling figure Captain Lou Albano, perhaps best known for his association with pop singer Cyndi Lauper, died Wednesday, according to World Wrestling Entertainment. Albano, 76, was "one of the company's most popular and charismatic legends," the company said in a statement. The cause of death was not immediately disclosed. "Albano began his storied career with Vincent J. McMahon in the 1960s as one half of 'The Sicilians' tag team with his partner Tony Altimore," the WWE said. ...

It says something about the popularity of "Dancing With the Stars" that the show's professional dancers have become almost as famous as the celebrities they're paired with. Take Mark Ballas, who last season waltzed and tangoed his way to a first-place finish with Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson -- his second mirror ball trophy since he joined the hit series in 2007. At just 23, Ballas is already recognized on the street, he's in a band with fellow "Dancing" pro Derek ...

Remastered versions of the Beatles catalogue will be released on Wednesday, giving listeners what the remaining members of "The Fab Four" say is the closest reproduction ever of how their music sounded in the studio. CNN's Peter Wilkinson went to EMI's legendary Abbey Road studios and spoke to Bob Smeaton, who directed the Grammy-award winning Anthology series on the Beatles, about a series of mini-documentaries that are included on each of the remastered albums. Q) How did the idea ...

Simon Cowell breaks his silence about a Paula Abdul-less "American Idol" next season in an exclusive interview with the television show "Extra." In the interview, set to air Friday night, Cowell said he doesn't want to "get in the middle" between Abdul and of the "American Idol" executives but told "Extra's" Terri Seymour, his former girlfriend, that the chemistry between the judges is different now. "It's like comparing a carrot to a banana," he told the show. "They are ...