‘Sidewalks of New York’ Hits Theaters

Two months ago, the terrorist attack on New York City’s World Trade Center prompted Hollywood studios to delay the release of any films depicting terrorism.

Oddly enough, one film that suffered this fate had nothing to do with terrorism. It was a romantic comedy written, directed and starring Ed Burns called “Sidewalks of New York.” Given the grief and fear that gripped the city a week after the attacks, the distributor realized that it just wasn’t appropriate to roll out the film at that time.

On Wednesday, Paramount Classics, the art house label of Paramount Pictures, will finally release “Sidewalks of New York” in 10 major cities, including Los Angeles and New York. But with the World Trade Center site still a wasteland and America at war, is the timing any better?

Ruth Vitale and David Dinerstein, co-presidents of Paramount Classics, believe it is.

“We need for people to lift their spirits and show what’s great about Manhattan and the people who live here,” Vitale said.

Dinerstein noted that there have been instances in other cities in which “people have gotten up and cheered” after seeing the trailer. “People are really rooting for [New York],” he said. “I think this film really captured the essence of the people who live in this town.”

In keeping with that spirit, Paramount Classics hosted a benefit premiere for the film last Thursday night in New York to raise funds for the New York Police & Fire Widows’ & Children’s Benefit Fund. Burns’ father, Ed Sr., a retired NYPD sergeant, has been involved with the family assistance fund since its inception, which long preceded the Sept. 11 attack.

The cast of the film, which follows the marital and dating lives of three men and three women, includes Heather Graham, Rosario Dawson, Dennis Farina, David Krumholtz, Brittany Murphy and Stanley Tucci.

A Great Number of Greatest Hits

The greatest-hits package is, for music industry coffers, the gift that keeps giving, which explains the torrent of “best of” collections now pouring into stores. From relative newcomers like the Backstreet Boys to such hit-deep veterans as Billy Joel, the record racks have been filling with the surveys.

This week, Pink Floyd’s greatest-hits package is hovering near the top of the U.S. pop charts while Madonna, Barenaked Ladies, Green Day and the Cure have new greatest-hits discs hitting the stores on Tuesday. On the way are entries from Aerosmith, Smashing Pumpkins, Ice Cube and Outkast.

The greatest-hits discs are a familiar fixture for the holiday season--they do make tidy gifts, don’t they?--but Geoff Mayfield, director of charts for Billboard, says the glut is thicker than usual. “This year,” he says, “it’s almost a case of asking who doesn’t have one.”

It might be a nod to the huge success of last year’s “1” collection of Beatles hits; it could be a sign of the industry’s current profit-lean days; or maybe it’s just a coincidence. Whichever, the simple math of the matter is that repackaging songs is pure holiday gravy for the music world, notes Pete Howard, editor in chief of Ice magazine, which aims at die-hard music collectors. It became a staple approach after the huge success in April 1958 of two groundbreaking greatest-hits packages from Elvis Presley and Johnny Mathis. “There was gold to be mined and remined,” Howard says. “If you can have a big seller with music where the recording costs have already been paid, why wouldn’t you?”

Networks Do the Annual Turkey Trot

While cable channels can load up on marathons of old series or sporting events, the Thanksgiving weekend has traditionally been a source of vexation for the major networks, given that it falls in the midst of the November rating sweeps.

Holiday travel plans and family gatherings invariably alter viewing patterns over the weekend, causing programmers to debate whether they should serve up original episodes or squirrel them away for periods when viewers are less likely to be distracted.

CBS will try serving up a double dose of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” Thursday, showing an original at 9 p.m. and a rerun at 10 p.m. opposite a new installment of NBC’s “ER.”

As it stands, both series have dominated their time slots this season. However, “ER” is more valuable during sweeps because it funnels viewers directly into late local affiliate newscasts, which rely on sweeps results to set advertising rates.

“CSI” has taken a bite out of “Will & Grace,” which will counter with a new one-hour Thanksgiving-night episode.

Fox, meanwhile, hopes to tickle the palates of stuffed viewers with broad comedy, scheduling the Adam Sandler movies “The Wedding Singer” and “Big Daddy” on Thursday and Friday, respectively.

Movies have been a reliable attraction, and NBC is running the holiday perennial “It’s a Wonderful Life” on Saturday while Fox unleashes “Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace” on Sunday.

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--Compiled by Times staff writers