(By Christopher Robbins) In the midst of the most important story of our time, Alec Baldwin's spokesman wants us to know that getting the boot from an American Airlines flight was just Alec being Alec. "Alec loves Words With Friends so much that he was willing to leave a plane for it," flack Matthew Hilzik tells the Daily News. And fellow famous-person Oscar De La Hoya, who was on the flight from LAX to JFK, tweeted "I think the flight attendant over reacted…@AlecBaldwin was doing nothing wrong but playing 'words' on his phone." But couldn't this just be some celebrity Omertá? According to American Airlines, Baldwin was acting like a thoughtless little pig. more ›

-- The Shining (1980): "Honey, I'm home," "Here's Johnny!" etcetera, etcetera, Kubrick, and so forth. (No one wields a baseball bat like Shelley Duvall. So awkward. Also, what ever happened to her?) Screens at midnight (okay, 11:55 p.m.) at the Clay. more ›

We've mentioned before that the only "Law & Order" we watch is "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," and the main reason for that is our imaginary boyfriend Vincent D'Onofrio is on it. So you can imagine we were a little worried when the fate of the show was up in the air at the end of last season. It had something to do with the franchise not pulling in the numbers it used to, and production costs needing to be cut. (Of course it should come as no surprise that the shows aren't as big in the ratings as they used to be since you can basically turn the TV on at any time of day and find an episode playing on one of any number of stations.) But apparently a compromise was reached wherein new episodes of "C.I." will air on USA first, and then will be repeated on NBC at some as-yet-to-be announced time in the future. SO! You can catch the season premiere of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" tonight on USA at 10 p.m. more ›

--From Vivek/On O'Farrell between Leavenworth and Taylor more ›

If you've been as disappointed with "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" as we have, then you might be approaching the similarly-themed sitcom "30 Rock," which premieres tonight at 8 p.m. on NBC, with a bit of trepidation. If a so-called "master" like Aaron Sorkin can't write a compelling show about the backstage antics of a late night comedy program, how could a mere "SNL" alum like Tina Fey do any better? more ›

It takes a very open mind indeed to look behind the unnecessarily gaudy covers, trashy titles and barely acceptable advertisements and recognize the authentic power of a kind of writing that, even at its most mannered and artificial, made most of the fiction of the time taste like a cup of lukewarm consommé at a spinsterish tearoom. more ›