Cross is slated to play what's described as a "radical enviromentalist" something which seems right in his wheelhouse. The part was played by actor Andrew Daly (Eastbound and Down) in the original pilot, but apparently his presence was no match for Hurwitz's loyalty to Arrested Development. At this point, don't be surprised if Keri Russell (the female lead) winds up being replaced by Portia De Rossi.

Of course therein lies the problem: Hurwitz is undoubtedly talented, but he hasn't gotten anything off the ground since Arrested Development was canceled. And really, does trying to capture that lightning in a bottle again seem like the best course of action -- especially since, from a ratings standpoint, it didn't work in the first place? Yes, the cult of Arrested Development has grown exponetially since the show has gone off the air -- if only all the people who say they love Arrested Development had actually watched the show, it would still be on the air -- but that doesn't mean fans will automatically embrace Arnett and Cross on Running Wilde. Some of the best AD moments came when Arnett's Gob Bluth was paired with Cross' Tobias Funke. If their pairing doesn't live up to those lofty expectations -- and, Inception-style, even loftier memories -- how long will it take fans to revolt? If Hurwitz wants to do more Arrested Development, he should do more Arrested Development. Otherwise, maybe he should have left well enough alone.

2 Eyeballs out of 4

Don’t be misled by the title Leaves of Grass. Do not expect literacy, either. This stoner comedy has nothing whatsoever to do with Walt Whitman or poetry of any kind. It’s just another oblique backfire from Tim Blake Nelson, whose work as a writer-director in general wallows in a bog of mediocrity. In fairness, I admit I once admired his horror film The Grey Zone, a nightmarish, black-and-white study of life and death in a Nazi concentration camp that is so relentlessly depressing almost nobody liked it except me. But it’s been downhill from there.

At least this one features the consummate talents of the versatile Edward Norton. Ever watchable when it comes to acting, if not always reliable when it comes to picking scripts, he plays identical twins as different as a taco and a tornado. Bill Kincaid is a clean-cut, button-down Ivy League philosophy professor in Ralph Lauren Polo on his way to a teaching chair at Harvard. His brother, Brady, is a drawling, greasy-haired Smith Brothers cough-drop-box cover who has developed his own hydroponic system for growing the best marijuana crops in Oklahoma. Devoting his life to scholarly pursuits, shedding his Southern accent and redneck family roots (their grandfather was a bootlegger) and vowing to stay as far away as jet planes can fly from both his hillbilly brother and a crazy Mammy Yoakum mother right out of Li’l Abner’s Dogpatch (Susan Sarandon, again), Bill is reluctantly lured back home to Little Dixie, Oklahoma, for the first time in 12 years to briefly attend Brady’s funeral on the false pretense that his brother has been murdered. But Holy Hog Slop, as Walter Brennan used to say, Mom has checked herself into a rest home and Brady, it seems, has faked his own death and hatched a lethal plan to wipe out a vicious drug dealer and synagogue leader with the unlikely name of Pug Rothbaum (a colorful Richard Dreyfuss); the plan requires him to be in two places at once. This forces Bill to play along, pretending to be his own brother while Brady pulls off the crime in another town. Facing a scandal and a prison sentence that could destroy his academic career, Bill is struck by the realization that nothing he learned in his philosophy texts can get him out of this mess and back to the lecture halls of Brown. The film’s biggest flaw: If he’s a professor, how could he be so dumb?

Despite the implausible plot and a series of snafus that almost doom both brothers, a smidgen of interest grows as Bill and Brady are reunited, an oddball chemistry builds and Bill’s orderly life unravels. But director Nelson, a cornball actor at best, is over the top as a larcenous Pa Kettle of a redneck sidekick, and Keri Russell is totally wasted as a love interest for Bill; her role seems like an afterthought. She’s the one who quotes Walt Whitman, “because it has no rhyme or meter,” while she’s gutting a 40-pound catfish. Mr. Nelson, a native of Tulsa, tries to bring some homespun, snuff-spitting, Tobacco Road ambience to the Oklahoma hick-town settings, but aside from the frenetic pacing and the fascination of watching the skillful Edward Norton juggle too very different dual roles simultaneously, there isn’t much fun or originality to be experienced here. The film also contains some shocking, blood-splattering violence that seems grimly at odds with the rest of its comic style. The mirror-has-two-faces-idea is nothing new. From Bette Davis in Dead Ringer to Sam Rockwell in Moon, dozens of seasoned actors have lit each other’s cigarettes while the audience thinks it’s seeing double, and they’ve done it in much better pictures than this one. In Leaves of Grass, it seems irrelevant and recycled—essentially nothing more than a gimmick that wears out fast.

rreed@observer.com

Tuesday: Fringe
We'll offer a full review of Fringe tomorrow, but consider this a reminder to set your recorder. In a fairly disappointing season for new TV shows, Fringe stands out as one that at least has some potential. From the fertile mind of J.J. Abrams (Felicity, Alias, Lost), Fringe goes to the edge of science where things cross over into the weird and supernatural. In the pilot episode, an FBI agent (Anna Torv) tracks down the genius son (Dawson's Creek's Joshua Jackson) of an institutionalized former Harvard professor (John Noble)—the only person alive that can help her solve a case involving an entire plane full of dead passengers. We won't tell you more, except that there's some crazy stuff involving a woman going into a coma in order to read another person's mind. We're thrilled to see Mr. Jackson back on the small screen, but also concerned that he may forever be Pacey Witter, even when he's supposed to be the smartest guy in the room. [Fox, 9 p.m.]

Wednesday: The Claim
We will watch anything by the great Michael Winterbottom (even 9 Songs, which is basically a hipster porno). But The Claim is actually one of our favorites. It's based on the Thomas Hardy novel The Mayor of Casterbridge, but this is about a prospector (Peter Mullen, in the film) who trades his wife and baby for rights to a coal mine. Twenty years later, his wife and daughter (played by the always wonderful Sarah Polley) turn up in his town, called Kingdom Come, along with a railroad surveyor (Wes Bentley) who's deciding whether to lay railroad ties nearby. Yes, it's an Old West movie, but it's not a western; Kingdom Come's got a frigid, snowy landscape, and the ladies act like ladies and the men are gentlemen (for the most part). With a budget of $20 million, this was Winterbottom's biggest budget to date, and it was a commercial flop upon its release in 2000. He followed it up with the huge indie hit 24 Hour Party People. [IFC, 9 p.m.]

Thursday: The Cho Show
We've only caught one episode of The Cho Show, which seems to be VH1's answer to Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D List, but it seems pretty cute! The reality series follows comedienne Margaret Cho through her everyday business—dealing with her Korean parents (who want her to have a baby so badly that they buy her baby clothes); soothing crazed, sobbing fans (yes, she has them); and managing her career, which seems to be in pretty good shape. In this episode, she endeavors to immerse herself in the world of pop celebrity, and records the requisite pop single and a sex tape. We can't wait to see what her parents think. [VH1, 11 p.m.]

Friday: Waitress
If you're in need of a good Friday night cry, try Waitress. The criminally beautiful Keri Russell plays a small town waitress and pie maker who dreams of escape from her nasty husband Earl (Jeremy Sisto) even while she's pregnant with his child. She stumbles into a passionate affair with her doctor, played by the too-neglected Nathan Fillion (we're pretty sure this is the first time we've seen a pregnant woman having illicit sex on screen), who makes her realize that she isn't so trapped at all, and opens up a world of possibility for a woman who never thought much of herself. Hal Hartley muse Adrienne Shelley wrote, directed, and co-starred. She was tragically murdered before the film's release, but her spirit is very much alive in this wistful, charming picture. [HBO-Z, 4p.m., and On Demand]

There were not quite as many stars at the gallery as last year, a trend that would continue throughout the weekend. (Patrick Dempsey presenting? Keri Russell? The Rock? What was this, the Emmys?) Perhaps they had stayed home for a political fix. “I watched the second half of the debate, and I thought Hillary had a marvelous finish,” said Diane Keaton, clad in her customary uniform of hat, shades, billowing black pants and a striped black-and-white blouse whose sleeves descended into gloves. “And when I’m done with this I’m going to watch it from the beginning on C-Span.”

By around 9:30 p.m. on Friday, soon-to-be-anointed Best Director Joel Coen and his actress wife Frances McDormand, plus comedian David Spade and lots of random TV executives, agents and managers, were swarming the as-yet-unfinished Los Angeles outpost of Soho House on the top floor of an office building on the corner of Cory Avenue and Sunset Boulevard, where NBC Universal co-chairman Ben Silverman was hosting a birthday party, with lobster—for whom, the Transom was unable to determine. Later the singer Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, arrived.

“I couldn’t quite tell who the crowd was,” said Richard Robbins, whose film about U.S. troops, Operation Homecoming, was nominated this year in the best documentary feature category and would go on to lose to Taxi to the Dark Side, about the Bush administration’s torture policy. He and wife Katherine Pope, president of NBC Universal Television, had just come from a dinner thrown by the Endeavor agency at Foxtail, a new nightclub on Santa Monica Boulevard, attended by, among others, mogul Harvey Weinstein (plans for an intimate dinner at super-agent Ari Emanuel’s house had been scrapped in order to accommodate more people). Meanwhile, CAA hotshot Bryan Lourd was toasting his clients with a private dinner at his home. “There are many fewer things this year and so you have more people trying to go to the same four things,” Mr. Robbins said.

Up the street at the Chateau Marmont, actresses Sharon Stone, Julianne Moore and Laura Dern (along with her husband, the singer Ben Harper); HBO Films president Colin Callender; Houston socialite Lynn Wyatt; the late photographer Helmut Newton’s, wife June; and rap mogul Russell Simmons were attending a party hosted by the Diamond Information Center. Jewels had been decadently draped on top of entrees and dessert platters, and by the end at least one was swiped (or perhaps swallowed). “There was definitely some accounting going on,” said an attendee, who had noted flacks rifling anxiously through plates of candy.

The subdued post-strike mood noted by Mr. Waters was only accentuated by unseasonably gloomy, damp weather in L.A., along with what one Sunset Tower Hotel valet termed the “Sundance flu,” a vicious bug that the entire town seemed to have picked up at the Park City film festival in January.

“I’m still on the Vitamin C,” said Shirley MacLaine earlier on Friday evening, sitting in a plush couch in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel with a friend. “But I think I may be through the worst of it. See? My wheezing is gone!”

There were many more grand dames to be found at producer Alex Hitz’s party on Saturday at his impeccably decorated mansion atop the Hollywood Hills: actress Joan Collins, heiress Betsy Bloomingdale, Barbara Davis (widow of Marvin, granny of Brandon), legendary diet-pill-pusher Nikki “Starcaps” Haskell, Ms. Wyatt again. Also, younger socialites Alexandra Von Furstenberg, Caroline Berthet and Tory Burch.

“This has become the chicest party of the weekend,” said Peter Bacanovic, formerly Martha Stewart’s stockbroker, now a jewelry executive, as he exited into the rain. “All chiefs, no Indians.”

By around 11, the imminence of the glorious Little Gold Man was finally palpable at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg held his annual The Night Before Party. A steady stream of pretty much every famous working actor flowed out of the hotel’s Crystal Ballroom—Orlando Bloom, Harrison Ford, Cameron Diaz—all looking very happy, carrying giant gift bags. Reporters, alas, were relegated to the Polo Lounge.

Perhaps the most missed event on Sunday, besides Vanity Fair’s, was that usually held by Hollywood doyenne Dani Janssen at her apartment in Culver City and attended by absolute A-listers like Jack Nicholson, Clint Eastwood, Michael Douglas and Harrison Ford.

Instead Ms. Janssen joined Mr. Callender, the HBO film head, and his lovely wife, Elizabeth, on Sunday for a small shindig in their sprawling home overlooking Beverly Hills.

When the ceremony concluded, the real show began as Ms. Janssen, who has long blond hair and wore all black, regaled guests with stories of years past. She remembered the night she went on a date with the late Marlon Brando. After dinner Mr. Brando began driving them eastward—toward the jazz clubs. Ms. Janssen knew she was headed for trouble once they passed La Cienega Boulevard, and had crossed the line once the car zoomed passed La Brea. In those days the studio had rules and the actors followed them. Except for Brando, who could do whatever he wanted, including going to the jazz clubs and playing the bongos all night—kinda like Matthew McConaughey before he got saddled with a family!

At any rate, after a while Ms. Janssen said she got tired of the scene and took a cab home. She added that young actors and actresses today (cough, Lindsay?) could learn a great deal from stars of her era, who never left the house looking unkempt, could handle their drugs. To this day, she said, they respect her house rules: blow on this balcony, grass on that one and the bathroom is for going to the bathroom only.

Later, on the phone from Baltimore, Mr. Waters said that the Elton John fund-raiser at the Pacific Design Center had been good fun, but not quite the movie-star-studded affair that the Vanity Fair party usually is. After watching Mr. John perform, he’d gone home. Prince was hosting something, and so was Madonna—but all that seemed kind of exhausting, he said.

“I’m not going to go into mine,” actress Keri Russell told us last night, referring to the birth of her son, River Russell Deary. (What did you think we were talking about?) She paused, flashed a toothy grin and added: “But it was great.”

Bundled in an oversized jacket and looking much younger than her 31 years, the Felicity star (and Brooklyn resident!) was milling about at the after-party for a special screening of The Business of Being Born at the IFC Center in the Village. Executive-produced by Ricki Lake and directed by Abby Epstein, the documentary, a well-meaning bit of agitprop for natural childbirth, has garnered considerable support from Hollywood bigwigs—like the evening’s absent host, Rosie O’Donnell—since it premiered last spring.

“My [famous] friends in California, they all have c-sections, because there’s no pain—it’s like no big deal,” she told us, before adding that the drugs “pumped through the mother” during birth can be linked to the eventual onset of chemical imbalances and A.D.D. in their child. “I just think the system is set up in a way that everyone wants that experience, and that’s not what everyone wants. I certainly didn’t.”

Ms. Russell—who is about to begin shooting an Adam Shankman-directed film alongside Adam Sandler—said that when she first saw Ms. Epstein’s documentary, at the Tribeca Film Festival last year, she had already arranged to have her baby delivered by a midwife. (Although she denies it adamantly, Ms. Russell has been linked to Scientology, which is anti-pharmaceuticals, to say the least.) The viewing merely confirmed her suspicions and strengthened her resolve.

“I just feel like birth is one of the most powerful things that can happen to a woman. And it’s nice to be reminded that you are built to do this.”

Keri Russell—she of Felicity fame—plays the titular waitress, named Jenna, who has a nasty husband (Six Feet Under’s Jeremy Sisto) and two good friends at the diner where she works (Ms. Shelly and Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Cheryl Hines). Her only moments of freedom are found in the kitchen, where she cooks up pies of all kinds of combinations and wacky names (I Hate My Husband Pie/Nut-filled chocolate custard); when she finds out she’s pregnant (unfortunate drunken encounter with husband!) she bakes even more and dreams of running off with her baby after winning a regional pie baking contest which, of course, her jealous husband doesn’t want her going to. And then she starts an affair with her obstetrician (the underrated actor Nathan Fillion, who played the supremely evil Caleb in the last season of Buffy) and generally starts making decisions for herself, to change her life, to make her happy. All the while Ms. Russell is wearing a waitress outfit, with little blue checks and everything. It’s adorable.

If Waitress sounds too sweet for you, think of it this way: this movie is actually about sex, adultery and gluttony. It just took someone like Ms. Shelly to see the bright side of those sinful things.

“Do you want a drink?” she asked her publicist. “Are you sure? I feel bad being the only one!” Bottoms up, Mommy!

The film, fanciful fare about a musical prodidgy, is Mrs. Russell’s second consecutive collaboration with sulky heartthrob Jonathan Rhys Meyers, the first being Mission Impossible III. (He attended the soiree with a comely anonymous brunette). “Last time we worked together my head was exploding and he was flying a helicopter,” Ms. Russell said. “And then we were, um, lovers under a moon on a rooftop in New York, so we’ve been through it all.”

How was the smooching?

“We were like, ‘Oh, God this is awkward, this is kind of like kissing your brother!’” said Ms. Russell, who is married to contractor Shane Deary. But is Mr. Rhys Meyers a good kisser? “Why, yes, he is!”

Behind Ms. Russell, a man was moving a giant blow-up of the cover of this month’s Self magazine, on which she is featured. “This is so scary!” said the actress, looking at the image.

So how does she keep fit, anyway?

“I really do a lot of walking in Brooklyn,” Ms. Russell said. “I love Pilates when I have time but I don’t always have a baby sitter.” Also! “I definitely think breast-feeding helps because it burns so many calories, so it’s good for you and it’s good for them.” No Maggie Gyllenhaal-esque public nipple shots yet, alas.

Why should we go see her new flick? “I am so in the mood for big romantic movies, and this totally fits the bill,” said the actress. “I don’t know, maybe it’s because we want to think things will hopefully get better in the world.” She then excused herself to dance with her husband.

Reuters sums up the New York-centric plot of August Rush thusly:

Listen to the song Myers does for the soundtrack here. Good idea about that business career in San Francisco.

Behind Spider-Man 3, the gory horror film had the strongest per screen average in the city, a very healthy $20,718. With Spidey finally facing some stiff competition next weekend with Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (and Shrek 3 waiting in the wings), look for 28 Weeks Later to build off its strong opening.

But in the city (if nowhere else), Keri Russell’s career resurrection continued apace. Manhattan theater-goers—who appear to have a soft spot for the former Felicity star (and ersatz "University of New York" student)— ate her up this weekend in Waitress, where she plays a down-on-her-luck pie maker with a cute—if not entirely believable—southern accent and more lady troubles than she had at UNY! Playing at seven theaters in Manhattan, the film averaged a respectable $11,549 per theater, cracking the top three in total box office here. (It has yet to crack the top 15 films in the country.) Expect Fox Searchlight to continue expanding it into more theaters. They’re taking their time with this one.

The same cannot be said for Jane Fonda and Lindsay Lohan's Georgia Rule, whose wide release was met with lukewarm box office. It finished behind Waitress in New York City, despite playing in two more theaters. Perhaps asking Felicity Huffman to balance out both Ms. Fonda and Ms. Lohan (and the hunky, yet clueless Dermot Mulroney) was too tall an order.

And this week’s straight-to-Netflix award goes to The Ex. The romantic comedy starring Justin Bateman, Zach Braff and Amanda Peet played on 6 screens in Manhattan, but could not out gross Away From Her or Paris Je T’aime both of which only played on two. There’s hope, yet!

Two years after buying a duplex apartment atop an ancient townhouse at 49 West Ninth Street, newlywed thespian Keri Russell has sold the Village place for $1.5 million.

Ms. Russell once starred in the weepy college-kid soap opera Felicity, which was enough to earn the top-flight two-bedroom, two-terrace apartment. The place was “private, charming and romantic,” according to the sweet-talking Halstead listing, though maybe she and her new husband wanted more than 1,150 square feet. (Felicity, ironically enough, was set in the Village.)

Plus, the listing says an apartment renovation is required. Was 31-year-old Ms. Russell untidy? She probably didn’t do much work since 2005, when the co-op had been marketed as needing a little T.L.C.

“I went in wearing my most modest shirt,” Ms. Russell said about her co-op board interview, “and tried to be the most prim-and-proper version of myself that I could be.” Now the prim Ms. Russell is gone: Every time a TV star sells her penthouse, the West Village dies a little.

Her buyer, according to city records, is Thomas A. Sachs. (This transaction came in after the deadline for Manhattan Transfers.)

—Max Abelson

City’s First Juice Bar Shakes Off Rats, Reopens

After racking up one of the city’s worst health-inspection scores so far this rat-crazed year, the original Papaya King outpost at the corner of Third Avenue and 86th Street is once again grilling its trademarked “Tastier Than Filet Mignon” franks.

The Health Department shuttered the “World’s First Juice Bar” on March 20, after the TV program Inside Edition aired footage of rodents at the Upper East Side sausage factory.

Citing the 75-year-old venue for “conditions conducive to vermin,” among a host of other health-code violations, inspectors slapped management with a horrendously high score of 111—just 84 points shy of the passing mark.

That’s 19 points worse than the infamously rat-infested KFC-Taco Bell in Greenwich Village, which remains shuttered, but still 49 points behind Manhattan’s most recent high-scorer, midtown’s Café La Fonduta—which, like Papaya King, has since reopened.

In a letter posted at the cash register, Papaya King president and C.E.O. Dan Horan apologized for what he called “an insolated incident,” which required “five days of scrubbing, cleaning and polishing this notably old, but historically significant space” in order to pass re-inspection.

—Chris Shott

Now More Parking, Fewer Fans At Future Yankee Stadium

The deal to build a set of garages for the new Yankee Stadium has been put off for another month or two as the city and the private developer negotiate over the lease, according to a spokeswoman for the city’s Industrial Development Agency.

The need, or desirability, of the $281 million worth of new and renovated parking facilities is a matter of debate, however: They would add almost 3,000 more parking spaces near Yankee Stadium, even though the new ballpark is going to seat 6,000 fewer patrons than the current one.

At an April 5 hearing, a few watchdog groups and community organizations asserted that the more parking spaces you build, the more people will drive. They argued that instead of using public funds to encourage driving, the money should be put toward a proposed Metro North station at the future stadium that reportedly needs another $35 million to meet its budget.

The I.D.A. is considering authorizing $186 million in tax-exempt bonds to a nonprofit developer to build the garages. The agency’s analysis shows that the city will spend $20 million to reconstruct parkland on top of the garages and will lose another $2 million in forgone taxes on the bonds.

Eventually, the city anticipates that it will make more than double its money back through new taxes, lease payments and shared revenues, though it will do so over a 43-year period, the I.D.A. said. It would not release the assumptions for the revenue numbers.

Officials say that a shortage of parking spaces is now forcing drivers to park illegally or to troll endlessly before games to find on-street parking.

But Bettina Damiani, the project director of the watchdog group Good Jobs New York, said the reason why fans parked on nearby streets was simple: “to avoid paying the expensive parking fees, which are projected to rise to $25 a game when the new stadium is completed.”

As for illegal parking, the extra 2,700 spaces that the developer, Bronx Community Initiatives Development Corporation, has proposed would far exceed the 355 cars that the project’s final environmental-impact statement estimated were parked illegally on any given game night.

In fact, the impact statement shows that the new and expanded parking lots and garages would siphon off 808 cars from existing stadium parking facilities every game night, leaving some of the privately operated old ones as little as 60 to 80 percent full.

But the new garages were part of the agreement that the city used to convince the Yankees to devote more of the franchise’s own money toward the new stadium, and a look at a map of the future set-up shows why: for the convenience of patrons.

The new stadium will be moved north a block. The new garages will go right next to it, rendering the existing garages and lots that are farther away less attractive. It is apparently worth $25 for the ticket-holder, and $22 million for the city, not to have to walk three or four blocks after a game.

—Matthew Schuerman

Union Leader Gets Inside Tax-Break Game

The newest member of the Industrial Development Agency, an obscure panel that gives out hundreds of millions of dollars in city tax breaks annually, is promising to cast a skeptical eye on the process.

“New York is so vibrant and strong that companies are under significant pressure to be in New York City,” Kevin Doyle, executive vice president for Local 32BJ, told The Observer. “What’s the rationale for spending public money to do things that [companies] are going to be doing anyway?”

It is rare that a labor representative sits on the I.D.A. board of directors. Mr. Doyle, 58, was recommended to the post by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, who has a close relationship with 32BJ, an 85,000-member division of the Service Employees International Union, which represents building workers.

Mr. Doyle also said that he would question the labor practices of companies applying for tax incentives, mentioning that J.P. Morgan Chase, which is reportedly pushing for more subsidies to move to Ground Zero, pays its security guards “as little as $8 an hour.”

Mr. Doyle, who was appointed in February, is realistic about the impact he will have, given that nine of the 15 members are appointed by the Mayor, and the others—recommended by the borough presidents and the city comptroller—must be confirmed by him. (There are currently some vacancies.)

“It’s a mayorally driven process,” he said.

—M.S.