FAMILY feud

A family with 12 kids can't expect a lot of peace and quiet. But the bakers decide to take a shot at a relaxing summer getaway. When they arrive at rustic Lake Winnetka, however, their retreat becomes a series of comedic competitions, thanks to Tom's rivalry with Jimmy Murtaugh, who's vacationing at the same spot with his wife Sarina and their eight children. Guess the silly movie!

BROWSING GEORGE CLOONEY AND JASON SCHWARTZMAN

George clooney, what can I say? He's the absolute perfect male specimen, His brows are fabulous! They're sophisticated and clean. Notice how they're not perfect, but perfect for him. I love the fact that he keeps the grays in his hair as well as his eyebrows. He probably has them groomed professionally. Then there's Jason Schwartzman---His eyebrows are good: for a drag queen! What in the world was his esthetician thinking? His brows have been overdone. All extra hairs on top are gone, as well as the bottom and what's left are two perfectly solid blocks. Although the monobrow is gone, over tweezing leaves a harsh but pleasant appearance!

ASIAN FUSION

The road to becoming a geisha is no petal-strewn path---just ask actress Ziyi Zhang and director Rob Marshall. Zhang stars as a legendary geisha in the big-screen adaptation of Arthur Golden's novel Memoirs of Geisha. Preparing for this role meant she had to buckle down and learn to speak English, through sheer force of will. The Beijing native said it's the toughest thing she's ever done for a film. The result is her first English-language performance in one of the most epic films of this decade. The romantic novel was the book of the year in 1997---selling more than four million copies, and was translated into 32 languages. The story follows Nitta Sayuri, a poor fisherman's daughter sold at the age of nine into the Kyoto geishahood. She becomes one of the most sought-after geishas of her time, struggles to find her place in a male-dominated culture and is haunted by her love for the one man who's out of her reach. Find it on dvd.

GWYNETH PALTROW AND FRIENDS

Gwyneth Paltrow says she loves Jane Austen---because she delved into it so much for the movie, her favorite was Emma. When she reads it she thinks it is brilliant, funny and sweet. Among contemporary novelists, she loves Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, and Joh Krakaur's Into the Wild. Alec Baldwin loves To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. In some important ways, characters that we have grown to love in this story are worse off at its end---but they are wiser and the family still has each other. This is a great story about facing life's difficulties and moving on, no matter what. Anjelica Huston has read Edith Wharton's short stories, but never her novels, until The House of Mirth and Age of Innocence. Wharton is an extraordinary storyteller with an amazing gift for detail, whether it be the innermost workings of the human heart or the rigors of social life in New York in the 1870s. She's as great as Henry James!

Lynn Redgrave loves Map of the World, by Jane Hamilton. It is a haunting sudy of a modern-day witch hunt. A family is torn apart forever when a child dies and a woman is worongfully accused of child abuse. Told by both the husband and wife, this noved grabs you by the stomach.

HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE

It's similar to when Darth Vader's wrinkly white face was unmasked in Return of the Jedi, or when we finally saw Marlon Brando's mad Colonel Kurtz at the end of Apocalypse Now. After three films in which the ultimate villain of the Harry Potter franshise-Lord Voldemort-was no more than a nervously whispered name, at last we get to see his face in all its wretched glory-and that face belongs to none other than Ralph Fiennes. All of your old favorites are back too, with Daniel Radcliffe as an increasingly adult Harry, who is charged with taking part in an ages-old wizarding tournament, Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley, now a gangly adolescent prone to jealousy, and Emma Watson as Hermione Granger, who's taken to crusading on behalf of mistreated house elves. See for yourself on dvd!

ORLANDO BLOOM

Some people predicted that the teen-crush hysteria over Orlando Bloom would fade away after memories of his portrayal of Legolas in The Lord of the Rings series dissolved into ancient history. They are wrong. Bloom continues in vain to be low profile and inconspicuous. Obviously his actor protection program is failing him in the most dramatic way. He has tried a lot of different things to go about his life in a normal fashion. There is little he can do regarding Bloom-mania, except to endure the attention and let the screams run their course. Although he admits he wondered if the hysteria would ever end, he realized it would not. Girls were screaming into the night, and he survived the attention, as he will again. Bloom's appearance in Elizabethtown, which examined the life of a very personal journey, allowed Orlando to respond to the intimacy of the dialogue, as he responded with intelligence and heart.

ANTONIO BANDERAS

Laugh if you will, but I'm going to go out on a limb and declare Antonio Banderas the most eclectic actor working today. I know for many of you the idea seems ludicrous, especially since the star of The legend of Zorro has developed a reputation as a one-note romantic Spanish caricature. But think about it, there are very few actors who can jump from genre to genre like Antonio. He played one of the most heartbreaking romantic leads I've ever seen in his first English-language movie, Mambo Kings, was touching, strong and sensitive as Tom Hanks' loyal boyfriend in Philadelphia, exuded power and machismo as the mariachi of the Mexican western Desperado and sang his heart out in Evita. The fact that he can really lose himself in a role, any way he wants, allows him to go on forever. His versatility is impressive.

HOME RENOVATIONS

CHOOSING THE RIGHT CONTRACTOR

STEP 1 WHERE TO LOOK

First, ask friends and family who have recently had renovations performed