X-CURSIONS: United Airlines has been capitalizing on the popularity of The X-Files in Great Britain by advertising X-File X-cursions to Washington, D.C., to visit FBI headquarters and other show landmarks. The Brits apparently don't realize the sci-fi scare-fest is filmed 3,000 miles away in Vancouver, British Columbia.
AWARDS: The Bay Area Music Awards, better known as the Bammies, honored Tracy Chapman with four trophies Saturday, including album of the year. Metallica also won four, including best group. And Bill Graham, Jerry Garcia and Carlos Santana were the first three inductees into the Bammie Hall of Fame.
AND MORE AWARDS: Continuing its relentless march toward Oscar, The English Patient picked up the 1996 Eddie Award for best edited feature film Saturday night. ER and Seinfeld won for TV drama and comedy and Roger Corman was named filmmaker of the year.
GRAND OPENINGS: Saturday night in Seattle, Steven Spielberg unveiled GameWorks--a sort of arcade theme park co-designed by Sega...After a nine-month delay, Superman the Escape, billed as the world's fastest and tallest roller coaster, finally opened Saturday at Six Flags Magic Mountain, outside Los Angeles.
MIDSEASON REPORT: Here's the latest on midseason programs: The ratings for George Segal's Just Shoot Me are up and Arsenio Hall's are down; NBC has canceled Prince Street after only two episodes.
BUZZED "Electronica," Carl Perkins, Tony Bennett, a shock-rock combo called the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Ben Lee, a 16-year-old songwriting prodigy from Australia, are the diverse and unlikely objects of the buzz at the 11th South by Southwest Music and Media Conference, which wraps up in Austin, Texas, today.
FINED: A lawyer suing Michael Jackson was fined $28,350 for hiding evidence from the pop superstar's lawyers during pretrial fact-finding. He represents five former Neverland Ranch employees who claim they were harassed at work and fired wrongfully. He previously was fined $10,000 one month into the trial for an earlier concealment of facts.
ADORED: Thousands of fans mobbed the Texas premiere of Selena, the biopic of the slain Tejano singing sensation starring Jennifer Lopez. The movie, filmed last year in San Antonio and Corpus Christi, received a standing ovation from the adoring audience. It opens Friday.
PASSING: Four-time Oscar winner Fred Zinnemann died Friday in London of natural causes. He directed From Here to Eternity, High Noon and A Man for All Seasons. He was 89.
AWARDED: Rip Torn has won nearly $500,000 in a defamation lawsuit against fellow actor Dennis Hopper, after Hopper told Jay Leno that Torn pulled a knife on him 30 years ago while auditioning for Easy Rider. A judge ruled it was Hopper who actually pulled the knife.
SHE'S BAAACK! Former teen-singing, mall-appearing Tiffany is trying to make a comeback singing country music. "I kind of got off on a little tangent...But I've always been into country music," the now 25-year-old warbler told a Tennessee newspaper.