Jack Noseworthy

It's so simple, it ought to be banal. A couple on a cross-country drive from New England to Southern California are stranded with engine trouble on a desolate stretch of highway in the Southwest desert. A passing truck pulls over, and its friendly driver offers them a ride to a nearby diner where they can call for help. The husband stays with the car; the wife goes with the trucker . . . and vanishes.

Near the bustling sets where the futuristic action flick "Barb Wire" is being filmed, a sign on the star's dressing trailer warns off visitors with a single forbidding word: "Mayhem." But inside that trailer, Pamela Anderson, the notably curvaceous co-star of TV's "Baywatch," turns out to be a friendly and gracious hostess.

The phrase "out-of-town tryout" evokes images of a train chugging into Philly, Boston or Baltimore, loaded with show folk, most of them smoking. Over here, the writers rewrite like maniacs; over there, in the bar car, the composer engages in frantic discourse with the piano--did bar cars really have pianos?--while the dance director hammers out a new step surrounded by performers wondering if this musical's going to fly after all.

Elvis Presley would have been 70 this year, a difficult thing to conceive given the persistence of his lively younger selves in the public mind and pop culture whirl. Who knows what he might have become if only he hadn't taken so much medicine -- a sitcom star, or president, or even the King of the Whole Wide World. He might have detoxed, done Shakespeare in the Park, cured cancer. Would he still be singing "Hound Dog"? There's no telling with the magnificent prematurely dead.

We arrive at the naval submarine base in San Diego at the crack of dawn in rented stretch limousines, a motley crew consisting of the director and two actors from the new Universal Pictures submarine film, "U-571," a TV crew from "Access Hollywood" and assorted journalists, photographers and studio publicists.

Accepted After being rejected by every college he applied to, a high school grad (Justin Long) and his misfit friends start their own fake university. Blake Lively and Lewis Black. Directed by Steve Pink. Universal Pictures, April 21 * Adam & Steve Craig Chester and Malcolm Gets star as two gay men who begin a relationship oblivious of the fact that they previously had one disastrous date in 1987. With Parker Posey, Chris Kattan, Julie Hagerty, Sally Kirkland and Jackie Beat.

Adventure The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3D. A lonely 10-year-old dreams up two imaginary friends -- a part-Great White boy and a girl with flaming hair and hands that melt everything she touches -- who lead him on a journey in Robert Rodriguez's wild tale. Cayden Boyd, George Lopez and Kristin Davis star. Dimension Films, June 10. The Brothers Grimm.

Friday Army of Shadows Drama Rialto Pictures With: Lino Ventura, Simone Signoret, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Claude Mann, Christian Barbier, Serge Reggiani The idea: The 1969 World War II story of a simple man who finds himself involved in the French Resistance. Writers: Jean-Pierre Melville, based on the novel by Joseph Kessel Director: Melville * So?