Free Republic

Lights! Camera! Agita! Despite monster hits like "The Incredibles" and "Shark Tale," Hollywood is hurting this season, with overall box-office earnings down well below the take in the same period for the previous two years. In the 10 weeks from Labor Day to just before Thanksgiving, the film industry grossed $1.39 billion, down 14 percent from last year's record of $1.63 billion and off 12 percent from $1.59 billion in 2002. Fall ticket sales were a bust as well, dropping 18 percent from last year's figure, from 268.3 million ducats to 219.9 million. This year's sales also were below...

Dona DeSanctis is fine with the occasional Mafia movie or, as she puts it, a TV ad "where a big, fat Italian woman is doing somersaults in a field just because the spaghetti sauce comes in a jar." But DeSanctis, deputy executive director of the Order Sons of Italy in Washington, D.C., finds nothing funny about "Shark Tale," a DreamWorks animated feature set for release in October. DeSanctis' organization is collaborating with Italian-American activists in Chicago and across the nation who are angered by the movie's sharks -- big-nosed, brutish-looking wiseguys with names such as "Don Brizzi" and "Don Lino."...