MTV's 'PoweR Girls' takes a close look at publicity

MTV's 'PoweR Girls' takesa close look at publicity
NEW YORK -- MTV reality shows such as "The Osbournes" and "Newlyweds: Nick & amp; Jessica" receive a ton of publicity. "PoweR Girls," MTV's new reality show, is all about publicity.
"PoweR Girls," starring publicist-to-the-stars Lizzie Grubman, will premiere next spring, the cable network announced this week.
The series, picked up for six episodes, will follow Grubman and her public relations team behind the velvet rope as they live, work and play in Manhattan, Los Angeles, the Hamptons and Miami. The show's title -- with a capital P and R in the spelling of power -- is a nod to the oft-used two-letter abbreviation for public relations.
Grubman, 32, is famously known for serving 37 days in jail for a 2001 case in which she backed her sport utility vehicle into a crowd outside a trendy Long Island nightclub, injuring 16. According to her Web site, Grubman's celebrity clientele includes Britney Spears, Russell Simmons, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs and Gloria Estefan.
And Grubman's name can regularly be found in tabloid pages.
'Alias' creator: I got jobby sending DVDs to Cruise
LOS ANGELES -- The new director of the third "Mission: Impossible" movie got the job by making Tom Cruise a fan of his TV show "Alias."
J.J. Abrams, who created the ABC spy series that stars Jennifer Garner, had a meeting with Cruise to discuss the upcoming "Mission: Impossible" sequel, but considered himself a long shot.
"I had a meeting with Mr. Cruise and I gave him the [first and second season] 'Alias' DVDs. He'd never seen the show, and I thought, you know, 'He'll never watch it,'" Abrams said. "I got a call a couple of months later and he had watched every episode."
After a long search, Paramount Pictures and Cruise's production company announced this week that Abrams was their choice to direct the third installment in the "Mission: Impossible" action-adventure series.
"'Alias' has been in some ways preparation for what that will be," Abrams said of the movie. "If it hadn't been for the DVDs, I definitely wouldn't have the job." He made the remarks at a presentation in Hollywood for the DVD of season three of "Alias," which goes on sale Sept. 7.
The first "Mission: Impossible" movie came out in 1996 and was directed by Brian De Palma. John Woo directed "Mission: Impossible II."
Cruise and Abrams plan to begin shooting the movie in summer 2005, after Cruise finishes working with Steven Spielberg on a new big-screen version of H.G. Wells' Martian-invasion saga "The War of the Worlds."
Meanwhile, Abrams will finish work on the fourth season of "Alias" and the launch of his new ABC show, "Lost," about a group of plane crash survivors stranded on an island populated by mysterious animals.
At film festival, directorblasts documentaries
COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- Hungarian director Istvan Szabo has criticized documentaries by American filmmakers, saying movies such as Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" and Morgan Spurlock's "Super Size Me" were fictions "with elements from the real life."
"I don't believe in documentary," Szabo, jury president for the Copenhagen International Film Festival, told reporters. The festival, which opened Thursday, will run through Aug. 29.
"The question is always who is paying the guy behind the camera," he said.
The Hungarian filmmaker, whose latest film is "Being Julia," starring Annette Bening and Jeremy Irons, said he prefers fiction because actors play roles, and sets and dresses are specially created. "The fiction genre is honest because everyone knows from the beginning that it is a lie," he said.
Today's birthdays
Author Ray Bradbury is 84. Retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf is 70. ABC newsman Morton Dean is 69. Baseball Hall-of-Famer Carl Yastrzemski is 65. Actress Valerie Harper is 64. Football coach Bill Parcells is 63. Actress Cindy Williams is 57. Musician David Marks (The Beach Boys) is 56. Country singer Collin Raye is 44. Singer Tori Amos is 41. Tennis player Mats Wilander is 40. Rap-reggae singer Beenie Man is 31. Singer Howie Dorough (Backstreet Boys) is 31. Actress Jenna Leigh Green is 30.