Former Saturday Night Live players Tina Fey and Amy Poehler go to the movies with Baby Mama in which Fey's character hires Poehler's as a surrogate mother while she tends to her career. Manohla Dargis in the New York Times suggests that the movie is "sitcom functional," but that "it pulls you in with a provocative and, at least in current American movies, unusual mix of female intelligence, awkwardness and chilled-to-the-bone mean." Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times reacts similarly. The movie, she writes, "hardly allows itself any sharp moments at all -- it's much too sweet-natured to be cruel, and much too cheerful to be angry. It probably could have pushed a few more buttons, but Baby Mama aims to please and succeeds." John Anderson in Newsday is not so generous, writing that the movie seems "mild to the point of pabulum, taking a pretty fertile topic -- surrogate motherhood -- and making it inoffensive to anyone." He then quickly adds, "This is not an endorsement." And Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune thinks the entire project may have been calculated by media planners. He writes: "Every moment of this project feels beat-driven, focus-grouped and designed to package Fey as a viable movie star with great pins (as one character takes pains to note) to go with the breasts (ditto). This isn't writing, it's advertising."

The stoner characters Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn), having left White Castle, now escape from Guantánamo Bay, but many critics suggest that whatever political punch the movie might have landed is weakened by a sophomoric, over-the-top script. Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News puts it this way: "The occasionally snicker-worthy Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantánamo Bay provides some of what fans want from its stoner heroes, but given the high-concept title, it's a big fat missed opportunity." Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune says that through most of the film, "you find yourself smiling at some of the bits, wincing through many, many others." Several critics suggest that the expected political payoff never comes off. "The movie goes after easy targets and goes soft on the harder issues," complains Wesley Morris in the Boston Globe. On the other hand, Liam Lacey in the Toronto Globe and Mail concludes: "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantánamo Bay is no political tract, but it can be surprisingly bold. (Did we actually see a Homeland Security official wipe his backside with a page from the Bill of Rights?) The main satiric point is indirect: Harold and Kumar are so obviously harmless, self-involved American dudes, the authorities' overreaction seems contemptible. In fact, Cho and Penn may do too good a job. They're so likable that you really wish they could find a better-scripted movie that cut back on the lazy scatology, sex and dope jokes."

Deception, starring Hugh Jackman, Ewan McGregor, Michelle Williams and Charlotte Rampling may be described by its promoters as a sex thriller, but critics are describing it as just the opposite. "Head-shaking banality," Desson Thomson calls it in the Washington Post. "Overwrought and ultimately silly," writes Ruthe Stein in the San Francisco Chronicle.And Stephen Cole in the Toronto Globe and Mail dismisses it as "a lamentably slack and dishonest genre exercise."

Hollywood is exiting the traditionally slow spring season laughing. In addition to last weekend's top comedy, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Universal will be ushering in Baby Mama, starring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, while New Line offers up another comedy, Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantánamo Bay. Analysts suggest the likely box-office winner may be a toss-up between the two new films. (They're giving Mama a slight edge.) None of the three comedies is expected to crack the $20-million mark. Also opening is 20th Century Fox's dismally reviewed Deception, which few believe will earn more than $5 million. Analysts suggest that this weekend the studios are really just in a holding pattern until the summer season kicks off next week with the opening of Iron Man, which is expected to earn about as much as all of this week's major releases put together -- and then some.

Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro has agreed to spend the next four years in New Zealand, where he will work with Peter Jackson, who is producing the two-part The Hobbit prequels to Lord of the Rings. In a statement released by New Line Cinema, Del Toro, who was nominated for a best original screenplay Oscar last year for Pan's Labyrinth, which he also directed, said that he felt "blessed" to have been chosen to direct the two films. "Contributing to the Lord of the Rings' legacy is an absolute dream come true," he said.

For the third time in a week, a stuntman working in the new James Bond film Quantum of Solace has been involved in a car wreck while driving a sports car near Lake Garda in Italy. The stuntman, Aris Comninos, was reported in serious condition after his Alfa Romeo collided with another vehicle Wednesday night. On Saturday, another stuntman, Jonathan Dunn Fraser, lost control of the car and drove into the lake. He was not seriously injured and was able to swim to shore. Italian news reports indicated that yet another previously unreported accident occurred during filming on Monday when a stuntman was injured during a car-chase scene.

New episodes of Grey's Anatomy returned to the ABC lineup Thursday night, but they gave the network little reason to cheer. Thursday night's telecast drew a 10.3 rating and a 16 share, down 23 percent from the comparable night a year ago. Coming in first during the 9:00 p.m. hour was CBS's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, but it, too, was down from a year ago as it posted an 11.3/15, 12 percent below its year-ago ratings. Also returning with new episodes Thursday night was ABC's Ugly Betty, which drew a 6.4/10 to come in second behind CBS's Survivor: Micronesia. CBS's Without a Trace remained in the lead at 10:00 p.m. with a 9.6/16, outscoring ABC's Lost with a 7.4/12. NBC's E.R., which once dominated the time period, placed third with a lowly 5.7/10.

ABC will attempt to capture some of the ratings magic of its sibling Disney Channel's High School Musical when it debuts a talent contest based on the franchise on June 20. The network announced Wednesday that the series, tentatively titled High School Musical: Summer Session, will be hosted by Nick Lachey, the former 98 Degrees boy-band member and star, with ex-wife Jessica Simpson, of MTV's Newlyweds. That show ended in a flurry of tabloid scandal that mostly focused on Simpson as the pair ended up in the divorce courts. But Disney may have reconciled itself to the fact that tabloid reporters are forever carrying shovels around its stars. Last year nude photos of High School Musical star Vanessa Anne Hudgens turned up on the website TMZ.com, and this week a photo posted on the Internet of 15-year-old Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus playfully flashing her bra touched off renewed tongue-wagging.

MTV Networks' TVLand cable channel may be the place to watch classic television shows, but the channel announced Thursday that it has now included on its website, www.TVLand.com, nearly a thousand old movie trailers produced from the '50s to the '90s, from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to Chariots of Fire to Risky Business to The Amityville Horror. In a statement, Larry W. Jones, president of TVLand, said, "The site's collection of trailers is another fun online tool for our audience to use to look back at their favorite moments in cinematic history. Whether you're into movies, music or -- of course -- TV, TVLand.com offers visitors a fulfilling entertainment experience."

Although this week's decision by the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to extend their talks an additional week was generally viewed as a sign of progress, L.A. Weekly columnist Nikki Finke, who generally has solid union sources, reported today (Friday) that both sides remain far apart and that the AMPTP is now anxious to move on to close a deal with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists "in order to use that as a wedge to soften up SAG." Finke, in her Dateline Hollywood Today blog, quoted sources as saying that the AMPTP has no intention of closing a deal with SAG until July (the current contract expires on June 30).

Some 5.5 million households added a high-definition television set to their furnishings for the first time during the period from last year's holiday season to this year's Super Bowl, according to a study conducted by Frank N. Magid Associates. Another three million added a second HDTV set to their homes during the same period. The Marion, Iowa-based research group estimates that 28 million homes now have at least one HDTV set -- or 25 percent of all U.S. households. Virtually all of the sets receive TV signals via cable or satellite companies; only 3 percent say they receive programming over the air. A significant number of HDTV set owners -- 30 percent -- said that they do not get HDTV programming at all, citing added charges by cable and satellite providers.

After 772 days of trying, Chris Wallace has finally landed Barack Obama as a guest on his Fox News Sunday. Wallace, who began an "Obama Watch," counting the days since he said Obama first told him that he would appear on his show (after the 2006 Gridiron Dinner), told the Hollywood Reporter that Obama has agreed to appear this Sunday. It will be the Democratic presidential candidate's first national TV interview since his defeat by Hillary Clinton in last Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary election. "They realized they've got a problem after Pennsylvania," Wallace told the trade publication. "They realized he needs to be able to reach out to working-class, blue-collar Democrats, moderate to conservative, and that's our target audience." It was a rare admission by a Fox personality that the channel targets the right half of the political spectrum.

A Singapore TV regulatory agency has fined a state-owned television channel $11,000 for broadcasting a program depicting a gay couple and their adopted baby in a way that "promotes a gay lifestyle." The Media Development Authority said that an episode of the home-decoration series Find and Design featured the couple who were seeking advice on turning their game room into a nursery. The program, the MDA said, presented the family "in a way which normalizes their gay lifestyle and unconventional family setup" and was therefore in breach of rules applying to broadcast TV in the country. The Singapore Straits Times also observed that the MDA recently fined a cable channel a similar amount for airing a commercial showing two lesbians kissing.