Jason Priestley

"Cherish" is an unfortunate title for a film that has nothing endearing about it. Implausible at every turn, it offers a dab of quirkiness and edge from writer-director Finn Taylor, but otherwise has nothing for audiences to embrace. Stars Robin Tunney and Tim Blake Nelson have enough going for them that they would be worth seeing in happier circumstances, but they can't make much of a dent in this negligible film.

With his hilarious spoof "Die Mommie Die!" Charles Busch takes the melodramatic woman's picture of the '40s and '50s to delirious extremes. It's a lurid tale about the travails of faded pop singer Angela Arden, played deliciously by Busch. Once hailed as "America's Nightingale," a loony sobriquet for a brassy belter, Angela's voice started to go, and now, in 1967, she has been locked in a sour marriage to Sol P.

There's deadpan, and then there's "Coldblooded," a comedy from former "Simpsons" writer M. Wallace Wolodarsky starring Jason Priestley as an unwilling mob hit man who grows with discomfiting ease into the job. Priestley plays Cosmo, a nerdy, emotion-free schlep who lives in the basement of a retirement community home and is perfectly happy running numbers until his boss (Robert Loggia) "promotes" him to gun for hire ("It's fun!" he enthuses to his complacent charge).

Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, who won some and lost some for the North in the Civil War, was bald and bold of brow. Head like a cannonball, with the goldarndest set of whiskers you ever saw. Nothing on the chin, mind you. But imagine two great snarly bird's nests, bisect them down the middle, put 'em side by side, plant the inner edges under the nose and the outer edges under the ears, and you have Burnside's sideburns. That's how they got the name.

The folks at Elan Polo, a St. Louis-based footwear manufacturer, are hoping little girls are so enamored with Dylan, Brandon and Brenda of "Beverly Hills, 90210," that they will run, not walk, to their nearest discount store for a pair of sneakers sporting the trendy ZIP code. The shoes, due at K mart, Wal-Mart and Target stores Sunday, come in almost 40 styles ranging from colored canvas sneakers to high-tops and are expected to be "value priced" at less than $16.

You've been sitting on the edge of your seats and holding your breath waiting for this beauty, right? So here it is, the new Fox drama series that "explores the realities and myths of social classes in Beverly Hills." As opposed to Tarzana. The 90-minute premiere of "Beverly Hills, 90210" airs at 8:30 tonight on Channels 11 and 6 (its regular time slot will be Thursdays at 9 p.m.), giving you the feeling you've been watching for 90 days.

"Beverly Hills, 90210" was the definite star of the 43rd annual Emmy Awards Sunday--at least to the throngs of fans watching the celebrities arrive outside the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. Despite the presence of such heavyweights as James Earl Jones, Jill Eikenberry, Michael Tucker, Glenn Close and Peter Falk, it was the teen heartthrobs of Fox's "Beverly Hills, 90210" who garnered the biggest cheers and screams from the teen fans who lined the streets.

Alisan Porter wants her straight hair back. The pint-sized Porter permed her long brown tresses to play the title role in John "Home Alone" Hughes' new comedy "Curly Sue," in which 10-year-old Porter plays a charming little con artist who melts the heart of an uptight yuppie attorney (Kelly Lynch). "John Hughes said if you do good (in the audition) and you get the part, we will give you a perm," she recalls. "I got the part and I still have curly hair. Perms kind of ruin your hair."