Entertainment

Everyone wants the chance to dream, and if Sunday night's Oscar results are any indication, the people who work in the dream factory most of all. It takes away nothing from "The Hurt Locker," which really was the best film of the year, or the exceptional directing job done by Kathryn Bigelow, to speculate that more than the acknowledgment of excellence was behind that film's triumph in the hotly contested best picture race. It seems fair to say that an almost subconscious yearning in part motivated the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to vote the way they did. A yearning for a Hollywood that once existed but doesn't anymore, a Hollywood where films like "The Hurt Locker" were business as usual and not something that was such an aberration, so outside of current norms, that it very nearly didn't get made at all. But if you voted for "The Hurt Locker," you could pretend that wasn't so. You could vote for a dream of a better world where these films lived long and prospered.

One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small, and the pills Tim Burton gives you don't do very much at all. With apologies to Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit," that more or less sums up "Alice in Wonderland," the director's middling new version of the Lewis Carroll tale. It has its successful moments but it's surprisingly inert overall, more like a Burton derivative than something he actually did himself. Through no fault of its own, "Alice" also has the misfortune of being the first major 3-D release to come out after the "Avatar" revolution, and when you add in that Burton chose to shoot in 2-D and have the footage converted, it inevitably plays like one of the last gasps of the old-fashioned ways of doing things.

Sarah Palin, who recently joined Fox News as a commentator, is now shopping a series to the television networks. The former Alaska governor has been meeting with network executives this week to pitch them on a show about her home state. In a sign of her seriousness, Palin has teamed with "Survivor" producer Mark Burnett. After meetings this week with ABC, CBS and Fox, sources told The Times that the two visited the NBC suites in Burbank on Thursday. One person familiar with the pitch said the show sounded like a nature documentary similar to Discovery's "Planet Earth."

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.

Aries (March 21-April 19): Choosing your battles is difficult for you because you like to win, always. However, the situation you're in might require backing down. Taurus (April 20-May 20): You have a "eureka!" moment about a problem that was more pressing a while ago. Don't dismiss it. Gemini (May 21-June 21): You woke up thinking about someone outside your circle of daily interactions. Reach out to that person. Cancer (June 22-July 22): Lately you've been wondering if anyone is listening.

Aries (March 21-April 19): It's easier to be generous with stuff than it is to be generous of spirit. That's why you value a certain person's heart and friendship. Taurus (April 20-May 20): Things weigh you down. Use what you have, and have only what you can use. Gemini (May 21-June 21): A family member may ask for money, but that's not the ideal thing to give. Helping someone learn how to make money will be far better. Cancer (June 22-July 22): Your thoughts radiate through your eyes.

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.

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.

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.

The Early Show Bobby Flay. (N) 7 a.m. KCBS Today Michael Lewis; Todd Bridges; Jason Priestley; Bethenny Frankel; Jeff Daniels. (N) 7 a.m. KNBC Live With Regis and Kelly Jennifer Aniston; The Script performs. (N) 9 a.m. KABC The View Jessica Simpson. (N) 10 a.m. KABC The Doctors Liz Vaccariello, editor in chief of Prevention magazine, joins the doctors to discuss home remedies for common ailments; secrets for youthful skin; curing sore muscles.

SERIES Top Gear: In the season premiere, the guys drive through Romania in search of the greatest road in the world. With Eric Bana (5 and 8 p.m. BBC America). 20/20: This program, from ABC News, takes behind-the-scenes look at ABC's series "The Bachelor" (8 p.m. ABC). Home Rules: Former WNBA player Fran Harris steps in to help frazzled families improve their relationships while an interior designer enhances their living spaces, in this new weekly series.

Culina at Four Seasons Beverly Hills Where: 300 S. Doheny Drive, Los Angeles. When: Open from 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, from 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Fridays- Saturdays and from 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Sundays Price: Dinner small plates, any three for $12; crudo, $9 to $30; antipasti and salads, $9 to $14; pizza, $13 to $17; pasta, $14 to $24; main courses, $18 to $42; sides, $6. Contact: ...

When a game is hailed as "the most anticipated title of the year" and is the third installment in a franchise that blew away nearly all the competition from the last generation of console gaming, expectations are high, and there is almost certain to be a letdown. While God of War 3, which hits store shelves Tuesday, is excellent gaming, it fails to live up to the hype. Kratos -- the buffed, bald, red-and-white-painted hero -- is on a mission of revenge against Zeus and the other gods of Olympus.

Dear Amy: A 16-month-old toddler relative has screaming tantrums when she cannot get her way. When this happens at home, the girl's parents call a "timeout." Being in a public place poses more challenges. Someone suggested that the person who was with the toddler should strap her into her car seat and wait outside in the car until she was done screaming. However, this little girl is strong and stiffened her body to avoid sitting in the seat. Any ideas? Wondering Dear Wondering: As much as I dislike the idea of one person physically controlling another, there are times when adults do need to restrain or simply force a young child to yield -- when their basic safety or well being is at stake.

The lights of Manhattan glittered in the background, as jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater set her sights on bass player Christian McBride. Cooing, crooning and creeping toward him on the stage, she sang an up-tempo, sexually suggestive blues, moaning "Oooh" and "Aaah" as an erotic tension built, stopping just short of physical contact. It was a trademark moment for one of the jazz world's most celebrated divas, but it was also incongruous: Bridgewater had just sung "Mother's Son in Law," a tune made famous by Billie Holiday, and the rest of her songs -- including "Good Morning Heartache," "All of Me" and "God Bless the Child" -- were also immortalized by the iconic singer.

Give Bullock and Bridges some credit. The key to a box-office boost from the Oscars this year, it seems, was winning a lead acting trophy. Lead actress Sandra Bullock's "The Blind Side" and lead actor Jeff Bridges' "Crazy Heart" both posted very strong performances this weekend after the stars won Academy Awards the previous Sunday. Ticket sales for "The Blind Side" grew by 24%, despite a small drop in the number of theaters where it played, bringing total receipts to $252.

KCAL news anchor Pat Harvey can still recall her edgy excitement generated decades ago by not only the imminent launch of an ambitious and historic broadcast but also by widespread predictions of failure. It was March 5, 1990, as the now veteran broadcaster positioned herself behind the anchor desk, the focus of a sparkling new set on a Paramount Studios sound stage. After months of planning, a rash of hirings and upgrades that cost more than $30 million, she was on the front lines of an unprecedented experiment -- a nightly three-hour newscast.

James McGrath Morris sees parallels between Gilded Age media baron Joseph Pulitzer's time and ours, pointing out that when Pulitzer (1847-1911) began to shape "yellow journalism," newspapers were going out of business and readers were bemoaning the end of journalism as they knew it. Pulitzer charged ahead, boasting that the color pages of the New York World emerged from the state-of-the-art printing presses "like rainbow tints in the spray." Indeed, the World seemed like something entirely new in the staid universe of American newspapers, perhaps as revolutionary then as the Internet today and as provocative as the practitioners of advocacy journalism on Fox. Morris' magisterial new biography, "Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power" (Harper: 560 pp., $29.99)

BOOKS Dennis Cooper The artist and literary provocateur leads this West Coast Tour of the Little House on the Bowery, his series of innovative fiction published by New York's Akashic Books. Cooper, Mark Gluth and James Greer will read on the stop. Book Soup, 8818 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles. 7 p.m. (310) 659-3110. Tim Johnston This reading and book signing is something of a homecoming for the author, who for years worked as a carpenter in L.A. while writing his stories.