Entertainment

In "Shutter Island," director Martin Scorsese has created a divinely dark and devious brain tease of a movie in the best noir tradition with its smarter than you'd think cops, their tougher than you'd imagine cases to crack and enough nods to the classic genre for an all-night parlor game. It's 1954, the heart of the Cold War, with a conspiracy theory around every corner, when Leonardo DiCaprio's U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new partner, played by Mark Ruffalo, are dispatched to an asylum for the criminally insane to investigate a dicey disappearance.

Fans of the late Phil Harris, the salty, tattooed captain who starred in the Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch," will still be able to see him doing the work he loved when the show launches its new season in April. Harris suffered a stroke late last month as he offloaded snow crabs from the Cornelia Marie in the port town of St. Paul, Alaska. He had been in an Anchorage hospital since then, where he died Tuesday night. He was 53. The popular show, one of many macho job reality series that dot the TV dial, had filmed more than half the new season when Harris fell ill. It's still unclear how the death will be handled in later episodes, a Discovery Channel spokesman said.

McQueen looms large The opening of London Fashion Week on Friday was darkened by the giant shadow cast by the death of Alexander McQueen, long the enigmatic toast of the London fashion world. McQueen, who died in an apparent suicide last week, was honored with a remembrance wall that quickly became the center of attention in the mammoth fashion tent pitched in the courtyard of Somerset House. Hundreds of messages were posted to the late superstar, regarded as the provocative enfant terrible of the once staid London design scene.

In his dressing room, Donny Osmond, at 52 with youthful if not teen features, is a relaxed man who converses seriously and likes to get into the technical aspects of his craft. He's explaining the surprising success he and his sister, Marie, have had with their reunion show that opened at the Flamingo in 2008. He answers like a man whose entire life has been spent reading his words in print: "It is a hard question to answer without sounding narcissistic. I don't want to sound arrogant," he says That night -- granted, Saturday on Super Bowl weekend -- his manager mentions that more than 50 people have been turned away who sought last-minute tickets to the sold-out show.

In a surprise development Tuesday that casts doubt on the rest of its season, television's top-rated sitcom, "Two and a Half Men," halted production after its star Charlie Sheen announced he was checking into a drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic. "We wish him nothing but the best as he deals with this personal matter," said a statement attributed to CBS, Warner Bros. and executive producer Chuck Lorre, who, according to sources familiar with the situation, were caught off-guard by the actor's move.

Dear Reader, I'm so sorry, gulp, but "Dear John" is like a very bad relationship with a very beautiful someone: You want it to work, you truly do, but the pain, the guilt, the boredom, the CW soundtrack . . . . And I wish I could say it's not them, it's me, but I really think it's them. The film's very beautiful someones are the ab-riffic Channing Tatum as John, whom director Lasse Hallström wisely keeps either shirtless or in tight tees for most of the film, and that golden girl Amanda Seyfried (" Big Love," "Mamma Mia!"

We're always looking for those performances that truly define an actor, where we can sit back and simply watch the talent soar. For Colin Firth, "A Single Man" is that film. Until now probably best known for his work in the "Bridget Jones" films -- the stuffy, sensitive suitor forever in the shadow of Hugh Grant's roguish charmer -- his portrayal of George, the single man that he imbues with amazing grace, should change all that. George is 52, a Briton transplanted to L.A., where he's been an English professor for years.

To prepare for the filming of HBO's epic, $200-million World War II miniseries "The Pacific," screenwriter Bruce C. McKenna accompanied a locations crew to a tiny coral island near Guam known as Peleliu. A ridge there is laced with hundreds of caves -- undisturbed for more than half a century -- where Japanese troops hid out from U.S. Marines during one of the war's deadliest conflicts. "There are still skeletons in the caves, and we saw them," McKenna remembers with amazement. "At the first cave we found, we walked in and there was the rib cage of a dead Japanese soldier.

Here's the surprise of the new incarnation of "The Wolfman," starring Benicio Del Toro -- there isn't one. No bite either, or humor, or camp. And the real killer . . . almost no spine-tingling dread. So I guess this is a kind of a horror story after all. Also starring, and squandering, the talents of Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt and Hugo Weaving, the film is built around the ancient myth of the cursed creature -- part man, part wolf, part of the time -- who battles to control the monster he discovers inside.

Aries (March 21-April 19): People snap to attention when you enter the room, not because they fear you but because they respect you. Taurus (April 20-May 20): Just as soon as you make a rule for yourself, you break it. When you have less on your plate, you'll have more self-control. Gemini (May 21-June 21): Get chummy with a Cancer or Scorpio and you'll learn about back roads and side streets. Cancer (June 22-July 22): Something is growing and changing right under your nose -- a marvel, really.

"My name is Tinsley Mortimer" says Tinsley Mortimer at the start of her new series, "High Society," premiering Wednesday on the CW. "People call me a socialite." There are no Gloria Vanderbilts or Peggy Guggenheims among this cast of aging children of unearned privilege, but Tinsley herself does not seem a bad sort, especially when set against some of her costars, and the narrative, of which (as narrator) she clearly approves, portrays her as a heroic, even innocent young woman, getting out of a long and respectable but no longer satisfactory marriage, against the endlessly restated wishes of her mother, who literally recoils from the walls of her daughter's new, merely Midtown Manhattan apartment.

SERIES The New Adventures of Old Christine: Christine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) tries to teach Ritchie's (Trevor Gagnon) class some street smarts but ends up stranded at a subway station after she misses the train herself. Clark Gregg and Hamish Linklater also star in this new episode (8 p.m. CBS). America's Next Top Model: This new season premieres with a special 90-minute episode as 33 semifinalists compete for the 13 slots that will allow them to move into the New York loft together.

Get ready to banish ruffles, beads and bows because fashion is cleaning up. A smart, new minimalism has swept the fall runways in Paris, and most notably at Céline. In her second runway show for Céline, Phoebe Philo proved she is fashion's new pacesetter. When the first model stepped onto the white-carpeted runway earlier this week in a navy blue funnel-neck coat cut with military precision and a pair of riding boots with sensible, metallic gold block heels, it was clear this show was about wardrobe solutions, pure and simple, in a range of neutral shades.

A veteran CBS News producer -- whose actions prompted late-night host David Letterman to admit he had had sexual liaisons with members of his staff -- pleaded guilty Tuesday to attempted grand larceny and will go to jail for six months. The deal accepted by Robert Joel Halderman brought to a close an embarrassing chapter for Letterman, whose on-air confession in the fall triggered scrutiny of his behavior behind the scenes. Halderman, whose former girlfriend was a longtime assistant to the late-night comedian, was accused of demanding $2 million in exchange for a screenplay treatment he wrote about affairs Letterman had had with female employees.

A wealthy philanthropist has kicked in $5 million in seed money. A top management consultant has come up with a business plan. A renowned university will lend not only its students but research help. And the budding endeavor has a chief executive who will pull down $400,000 a year and one of the world's most prestigious newspapers ready to give its future news offerings a home. When the Bay Area News Project launches its website in late spring or early summer, it will be just the latest -- and perhaps the most ambitious -- nonprofit venture among a string of similar start-ups.

'Phantom' sequel cheered in London A star-studded audience -- including actors Michael Caine, Rowan Atkinson and musical singer Elaine Paige -- rose to their feet and cheered at the conclusion of the premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber's sequel to "Phantom of the Opera" in London on Tuesday night. The composer bowed and blew a kiss to the audience. "Phantom" is a tale of gothic romance set in the Paris Opera that has been seen by 100 million people around the world since it opened in 1986.

Ask any musician what's wrong with video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band and you'll get some variation of this response: If gamers spent half as much time with a real instrument as they did pushing plastic buttons on a toy version, they could become musicians instead of just mimicking them. That argument has been heard loud and clear at Seven45 Studios in Boston, where game designers have come up with Power Gig: Rise of the SixString, which puts a genuine electric guitar into players' hands, allowing them to unplug from the game, hook up to an amplifier and rock for real.

The Early Show Harry Smith's colonoscopy. (N) 7 a.m. KCBS Today Catherine Zeta-Jones. (N) 7 a.m. KNBC Good Morning America Authors Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Rev. Mpho A. Tutu. (N) 7 a.m. KABC Live With Regis and Kelly Guest co-host Ludacris; America Ferrera; Bret Michaels. (N) 9 a.m. KABC The View Forest Whitaker; Jesse Ventura. (N) 10 a.m. KABC The Doctors Heart transplant candidate. (N) 11 a.m. KCAL Rachael Ray John Cusack and Amanda Peet.

Aries (March 21-April 19): In your world, there is no such thing as waiting around. You are able to use unexpected stalls. Taurus (April 20-May 20): Chances are, you are using a great deal of intuition to manage your life now. Practical action also becomes necessary today. Gemini (May 21-June 21): Soon you will find a big problem is no longer an issue. It is easy to repel what you don't want when you are focused. Cancer (June 22-July 22): You'll travel down the wrong road.

The problem with having what is arguably the best, and certainly the largest, cast on television is that if you want to give them all something interesting to do for a season that lasts only nine episodes, things can get a little crazy. That's what the creators, and fans, of "Big Love" discovered over the last few months as a soap operatic tangle of story lines -- Bill's running for state office! Ana's back and she's pregnant! Nicki's mother married Nicki's ex-husband! The Greens kidnapped Frank, Lois and Ben!