Slice of SciFi News Briefs

Oscar turns 80. The Academy of Arts and Motion Pictures enters its eighth decade with a bright future.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Georgian capital Tbilisi Sunday to demand that a leading independent television station go back on air.

While slipping fast in American theaters, “Beowulf” is still tops in the foreign box office, dominating the weekend with an additional $26 million at 5,400 playdates in 43 markets for its second straight international victory.

The terrorism-action/adventure drama, “Red Monday,” from executive producer J. Marcus Xavier, gets its premiere online today (Monday, Nov. 26). We originally mentioned this program’s production back in October. The series will have a total of 5 episodes with the first viewable for Free. The premise for this exciting audio drama has a nuclear weapon exploding somewhere in Los Angeles, California. While millions are trying to escape the city, three are eager to get in.

GO HERE [click codename Gabriel to enter site] and tune in each Monday, beginning today, for “Red Monday.”

How big is Jerry Seinfeld? Even after several years of being off the air with his acclaimed TV series, the King of Things About Nothing is still so popular that when the star buzzed through Israel this week to promote his “Bee Movie” he gobbled up all the front page and TV News headlines in the press, totally blocking out such important stories like the upcoming Middle East Peace Talks. It took today’s announcement that U.S. President George W. Bush was onboard for the talks to finally push Seinfeld’s face off the front page.

As planned, leaders of the WGA and those representing studio and TV networks met behind closed doors today to resume talks to find a way to bring the current writer’s strike to a halt.

All the big names behind the voices of Shrek, Fiona, Donkey and Puss will be on hand for the TV Special “Shrek the Halls,” the Christmas treat for kids and adults alike. Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy and Antonio Banderas will reprise their characters made famous from the three films in the Shrek franchise.

“Shrek the Halls” follows Shrek (voiced by Mike Myers) as he tries to achieve Yuletide perfection for Fiona and their children. Things fall apart when unwanted guests arrive at his doorstep on Christmas Eve. The party crashers include Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas), who disrupt Shrek’s by-the-book plans, causing him to react in Scrooge-like fashion.

However, like Scrooge and the Grinch, Shrek eventually learns the true meaning of Christmas.

“Shrek the Halls” will debut this Wednesday, November 28 on ABC.

Producers and Broadway stagehands continued their talks today as theaters along the Great White Way faced a 3rd week of closed ticket booths and darkened stages. Talks will resume after a 12-hr break. As members from both sides exited the meeting today, spokespersons for both agreed that progress is being made. One sign of that progess was the announcement that the musical “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” is reopening on Broadway.

In our final brief, on the science front — more good news about stem cell research. First, in the U.S. the tide against such research is beginning to turn in favor of more investigation into the technology, and even more exciting — Two research groups have found different genetic recipes to give ordinary skin cells the power to turn into virtually any kind of human tissue, just as embryonic stem cells do.