Zombies in tow, George A. Romero returns to the screen with Diary of the Dead, with a plot and hand-held-camera technique that several critics note are much like Cloverfield. The difference, says Manohla Dargis in the New York Times, is that Romero's film is "a lot cheaper-looking, generally smarter-sounding and a whole lot funnier." Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune also observes that while the shaky "syndrome kept Cloverfield on the run," Romero's film is "more provocatively handled ... and is funny and sad and rather sweet as zombie pictures go." But Liam Lacey in the Toronto Globe & Mail isn't buying it. "Cloverfield is slick, immersive and gone in 88 minutes," he writes. "Romero's indie film is shambling, rough-edged and challenging in ways that go beyond audiences' tolerance for shaky cameras." Likewise Roger Moore writes in the Orlando Sentinel: "Where Cloverfield felt 'real, ' with its amateur camera work and unedited, un-narrated narrative of a monster attack on New York, Diary is a slapdash, dully narrated, badly acted attempt at capturing that same look of 'found video.'" And Ty Burr sums up in the Boston Globe: "The movie plays like Cloverfield for grad students." Clearly critics are deeply divided over this latest Romero film, his fifth. While Peter Howell in the Toronto Star calls it "one of the best of the bunch," Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times describes it as Romero's "least successful vision of the zombie apocalypse."

The Great Debaters, directed by and starring Denzel Washington, has received the NAACP's 2007 Image award as best film of 2007. Washington, along with costars Jurnee Smollett and Denzel Whitaker, also received acting awards for the film. In television categories, Grey's Anatomy won for best drama series, while Tyler Perry's House of Payne won for comedy series.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have insisted during his visit to the U.S. last year that "in Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country," but a documentary, Be Like Others from director Tanaz Eshaghian, dealing with the social pressures faced by homosexuals in Iran, won the jury prize at the Berlinale's Teddy Queer Film Awards Thursday. Olaf de Fleur's The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela won the best feature Teddy. Also screening at the festival is Egyptian Parvez Sharma's A Jihad for Love, which, the director has said, seeks to call attention to the plight of gay Muslims while at the same time "defending the faith."

Legendary Polish film director Andrzej Wajda, who has chronicled his country's turbulent history in numerous features, including his current film Katyn, about the slaughter of Polish military officers by Soviet troops at the beginning of World War II, says he now wants to explore contemporary issues. Wajda, who turns 82 on March 2, told a news conference at the Berlin Film Festival that he has made his last film about Poland's misery at the hands of Germany and Russia. "I do not wish to return to this subject anymore. I'm an old man now," he said. "Having made this film (Katyn), I would now like to conclude that chapter of my life." He indicated that he is looking to make a film about the exodus of young Poles from the country and the difficulties they face adjusting to life abroad. Asked about Katyn being used as a substitute at the opening of the Bangkok Film Festival last year after the controversial French film Persepolis was yanked because of protests from the Iranian government, Wajda indicated that he had no qualms about replacing it. "That was quite normal for me," he said, "For 50 years, I lived in a country, after all, which had censorship ... and I had to accept the fact that a lot of [my films] could not be screened at festivals."

Trade publications and tech websites began spreading the word Thursday that Toshiba was about to throw in the towel in the fight between its HD DVD high-definition home-video system and Sony's Blu-ray system. The Hollywood Reporter said that an announcement from Toshiba could come "in a matter of weeks." Officially, Toshiba spokeswoman Jodi Sally repeated the company's standard response to such reports, saying that it continues "to believe HD DVD is the best format for consumers, given the value and consistent quality inherent in our player offerings." However, she seemed to acknowledge that the company might be reassessing its position based on "market developments in the past month."

Chinese officials have denied reports that they have barred the movie Shanghai, being produced by Mike Medavoy for the Weinstein Co., from being filmed in their country. Rather, they said, they had simply requested changes to the script and had asked that the producers resubmit their filming application. They did not indicate what sort of changes they wanted implemented, although it has been reported that the script has scenes in which characters smoke opium. Producer Mike Medavoy, who was born in Shanghai, told the Associated Press that he's still hopeful the Chinese will approve his application. "I hope everybody rethinks it," he said. The film is set to star John Cusack, Gong Li and Ken Watanabe.

Ratings for virtually all of network television's offerings Thursday -- usually the highest-rated night of the week -- remained off substantially from their year-ago levels. CBS's Survivor: Micronesia may have won the 8:00 p.m. hour with an average 7.6 rating and a 12 share, but it was down from a 9.2/14 from last year's Survivor: Fiji for the comparable week. ABC's Lost won the 9:00 p.m. hour with an 8.2/13 and was the only network show of the night to exhibit a year-to-year improvement. A repeat of CBS's Without a Trace won at 10:00 p.m. -- but did it with just a 6.8/11. Nevertheless, the show was able to beat new episodes of ABC's Eli Stone (5.3/10) and NBC's Lipstick Jungle (4.3/7).

If the switch to digital television were to occur today instead of one year from Sunday, 13 million households would be staring at blank screens, according to a report by Nielsen research released today (Friday). Another 6 million households would have at least one set that would not be able to receive digital signals. The report suggested that African-American and Hispanic households are the least prepared for the switch -- with 17.3 percent of Hispanic households unable to receive digital signals on any set in their homes. Nielsen released the report at a client meeting in Las Vegas, warning advertisers of the possibility of a serious ratings shortfall unless a major effort is pursued to encourage viewers with analog sets who receive TV over the air to purchase converters.

Depending on their placement in the broadcast, 30-second commercials on ABC's telecast of the Feb. 24 80th Annual Academy Awards telecast are fetching as much as $1.7 million each -- a record, Advertising Age reported Thursday. The trade publication observed that live telecasts like the Oscars are becoming especially valuable to advertisers since they are not likely to be watched at a later time by viewers with digital video recorders, who often skip commercials. ABC has contracted with General Motors to be the sole automotive advertiser on the telecast. AdAge suggested that GM will not only be buying commercial time, but will be getting a lot of product-placement time as well, with 75 of its "environmentally friendly" vehicles, including the GMC Yukon Hybrid, shuttling celebrities to the red carpet.

Local late-night newscasts and network talk shows are likely to face some stiff competition as digital video recorders proliferate in American homes, a study by Nielsen Research suggests. The study found that the traditional primetime viewing period from 8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. is expanding in DVR households because viewers are watching shows they recorded on DVRs after 11:00 p.m. Eleven percent of adults 18-49 with DVRs now watch their recorded programs between 9:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. Seven percent are watching between 11:00 p.m. and midnight. As a result, the average viewer is watching more TV than ever, the study concluded. In a statement, Patricia McDonough, Senior Vice President of Insights Analysis and Policy at Nielsen Media Research, said, "DVR playback has added to TV usage, particularly during the most watched hours of the day, as viewers take advantage of their ability to watch their favorite shows according to their own schedules."

Carson Daly, who was accused of "betraying" his staff writers when he became the first late-night talk-show host to return to the air four weeks after the WGA strike began (taping of his show was later disrupted by striking writers) is now being hit from the opposite direction. According to L.A. Weekly columnist Nikki Finke, NBC has cut Last Call with Carson Daly's budget and fired three of its four writers. Six other employees also received pink slips. Finke, on her Deadline Hollywood Daily blog, said that NBC had confirmed the cuts and quoted a network source as saying that the cuts were not made because of the strike.

Tribune Co. on Thursday sold its TV studios in Hollywood, the home of its Los Angeles TV station, KTLA, and the production site of such shows as Judge Judy, Hannah Montana, and E.R., to Hudson Capital LLC for $125 million. The studio, along with another property farther east that was once the Hollywood home of ABC, was originally the site of Vitagraph Studios. Both sites were later acquired by Warner Bros when it merged with Vitagraph in the early 1920s.