This week, the world of late night television experiences its biggest shakeup in years, as Jimmy Fallon takes the reigns of NBC’s “Late Night” from Conan O’Brien, who, at the start of June, will take over “The Tonight Show” from Jay Leno, who moves on to start his own talk show at 10pm. With talk show hosts on our minds these days, it seemed like a good time to look back and see how they’ve fared on the silver screen.

Qualifications for inclusion were simple: the talk show host in question has to be best known — and most successful — in their show business career as a talk show host. Craig Ferguson, current host of CBS’ “Late Late Show,” carved out a long and successful career as an actor and director of such films as “The Big Tease” before accepting the slot after David Letterman, so he was out. We also disqualified any movie in which the potential subject played him or herself. That meant no entry on Jerry Springer’s turn as “Jerry Springer Farrelly” in “Ringmaster” (Thank God). Of course, even when these men (and one woman) were “acting,” they were often just doing their TV schtick anyway, as cops or stuffed monkey salesmen behaving a lot more like comedians than men of their alleged profession or stature.

Herrrrrre’s the movies. For full effect, say the last sentence like Ed McMahon.

Jay Leno
Host of “The Tonight Show” (1992-2009)
Appearing in “Collision Course” (1989)
Directed by Lewis Teague

Jay Leno may be playing Detroit P.D. Detective Tony Costas in the buddy action comedy “Collision Course,” but he looks an awful lot like Los Angeles talk show host Jay Leno. Like the real-life Leno, Costas’ wardrobe is steeped with denim, and a plot involving a stolen prototype for a new sports car called the Starburst (that comes in Orange, Lemon, Cherry, or Strawberry) plays to the automobile milieu that’s a such a key part of his “Tonight Show” persona. Even with all these personal touchstones, Leno still fumbles the role. It doesn’t help that with a physique doughier than a Pillsbury spokesman and a running gait that resembles Barbaro after he broke his leg at the Preakness in 2006, Leno may be the least convincing badass cop of all time. He’s teamed with Pat Morita, a Japanese policeman searching for the same prototype plans, and together they get over their racial hatred while teaching each other the joys of ignoring Miranda rights and murdering suspects in cold blood. It’s too bad Leno and Morita don’t acknowledge the fact that they’re the worst cops ever — some scenes would make great material for a late night monologue. “Now what you want to do when you find a possible murder weapon is to cover it with your own fingerprints while destroying as much of the physical evidence the killer left behind as possible!”

David Letterman
Host of “Late Night with David Letterman” (1982-1993); “The Late Show with David Letterman” (1993-Present)
Appearing in “Cabin Boy” (1994)
Directed by Adam Resnick

What better way for David Letterman to celebrate his leap from NBC to CBS’s “The Late Show” in 1993 than a bit part in Chris Elliot’s bizarre magnum opus “Cabin Boy”? Written and directed by “Late Night” scribe Adam Resnick, and starring frequent contributor Elliot, Letterman’s appearance ended up being one of the most famous cameos of all time, at least among talk show junkies. Appearing early on as a salty seaside merchant with a healthy disdain for Elliot’s “fancy lad,” he poses the evocative question, “Would you like to buy a monkey?” while holding the stuffed simian aloft. He later immortalized the query during his Oscar hosting gig, which unearthed auditions of Paul Newman and Madonna putting their own unique spin on the line. (Watch for yourself here.) Clearly not ascribing to the “Method” school of acting, Letterman delivers it with his usual ironic bemusement, and aside from the newsboy cap, puts little effort into fitting into the wonderfully strange seafaring mythos of the movie. He’s still just Dave, the wisecracking, non-sequitur loving man-child, wandering on set with a chewed-up cigar in his mouth and a knit monkey in his hand.

The sharpest, smartest show on TV is famed for its sly nods to movies.

The beautifully observed homages vary from blink-and-miss single frames to shot-by-shot recreations of entire scenes.

Here’s our top 50…

50. Requiem For A Dream (2000)

Episode: I’m Spelling As Fast As I Can (Season 14)

The original moment: The scuzzy lives of various Brighton Beach addicts are reduced to flick-book moments of monotonous quick snap repetition – powder-snort-hit-high – in Darren Aronofsky’s sharp drama.

The Simpsons moment: Homer becomes addicted to the latest Krusty Burger product, the Ribwich (tag line: ‘I don’t mind the taste!’), his instant-hit happiness shown with Requiem-style quick cuts. It works best if you see it in motion here.

49. The Great Escape (1963)

Episode: A Streetcar Named Marge (Season 4)

The original moment: Steve McQueen’s repeat escapist Captain Virgil Hilts is sent to solitary confinement of ‘the cooler’, and passes the time throwing a baseball against the wall over and over.

The Simpsons moment: With Marge rehearsing for her theatre production of A Streetcar Named Desire, Maggie spends the day in the Ayn Rand School For Tots. After organising a failed escape with the other babies she’s sent to a playpen called ‘the box’ and bounces a ball off the walls.

48. A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Episode: Treehouse Of Horror III (Season 4)

The original moment: In a dystopian near-future England, Malcolm McDowell is Alex, the leader of a brutal gang of youths elaborately dressed in bowler hats, white shirts and eye makeup.

The Simpsons moment: In the opening segment for season four’s Halloween episode there’s a party at the Simpsons’ house, and Bart comes dressed as Alex. In the same episode there’s a King Kong spoof called King Homer.

If you’re a Muslim (note: while Borat wasn’t Muslim some Muslim groups were concerned that he would be confused for one) or a Kazakhstani who hated the way Borat stereotyped your people, then prepare to get upset all over again. It seems that even though Sacha Baron Cohen wasn’t the least bit afraid of you, he’s scared to death of gay people.

When Muslims bitched and complained about Borat, when people sued and when civil rights groups of all type threatened to protest, when Khazakh officials pissed and moaned about the way they were being portrayed, Sacha Baron Cohen and 20th Century Fox simply gave them the middle finger and then released their horribly offensive movie anyway. They were rewarded with huge box office numbers and critical praise. It was a rare, shining moment for free speech in this country.

Enter Bruno which by all accounts is, at the least, just as offensive as Borat and we hope just as funny. Though by the time we see it, the film may be less funny. Or at the least, it won’t be the movie Cohen and his team originally intended because The Wrap is reporting that Cohen has conducted significant reshoots to Bruno after gay audiences at sneak peek showings told him that he crossed over the line.

Apparently those reshoots happened this spring and included an ending shot with cooperation from Elton John, whose presence will undoutedly take care of quite a lot of placating. Word is they’ve shoehorned in some sort of pro-gay marriage message along with Sir Elton. Meanwhile people who haven’t seen the movie are already overreacting, in spite of the reshoots. It’s being compared to a white actor appearing in blackface… which seemed to work out pretty well for Robert Downey Jr. Maybe Sacha Baron Cohen will win an Oscar.

At issue is whether this is satire or simply getting laughs at the expense of gay stereotypes… I guess. Frankly I had no idea that Cohen cared what people thought. He certainly didn’t when he made Borat, but I guess gay people have more powerful lobbying groups.

I haven’t seen the movie and neither have any of you, so we have no way to know what the film’s content is like. Maybe they have a point, maybe he really does go too far. Who knows? Again, I thought the whole point of his movies was crossing the line? Borat crossed the line at least once every sixty seconds. It’s Khazaks though who should be really pissed here. Why do gay people get their way while Cohen was allowed to take a big dump on an entire country? If I were Khazakstan, I’d declare war on San Francisco right now… assuming they haven’t already. They are Khazaks, after all.

THE narrow, winding streets of Naples reverberate with the sounds of impatient car horns, barking dogs and rat-a-tat-tatting scooters. Opulent Baroque churches and elegant palazzi open onto a landscape covered over in graffiti, and patrons in cafes keep a close eye on their bags as they chatter over pizza or the delicate, shell-like local pastries called sfogliatelle. Under towering Vesuvius, the city has a feel of chaos, congestion, frenetic activity.
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The cryptoportico under San Lorenzo Maggiore.

But make your way beneath the espresso-fueled cacophony, and you discover the deep and ancient silence of a lost world: of catacombs and caves, Roman roads and markets, World War II air-raid shelters, and early Christian burial sites of faded frescoes and mosaics.

Naples is built layer over layer out of the compacted volcanic ash and rock that Italians call tufo. Porous and easily manipulated, it was used by the Greeks, starting around 470 B.C., as they built their Neapolis; the name means “New City” and emerged over time as Napoli — or, in English, Naples. Later the Romans used the tufo quarries for an extensive system of underground aqueducts. Early Christians dug caves to worship and bury their dead. Neapolitans of various centuries used the cavities as dumping grounds. Only the cholera epidemic of the mid-1880s shut down this underground city, but in World War II it was in use again, as shelter from the heavy bombing that decimated the city.

Most of Naples has a honeycombed underground, and slipping into it — and back through time — is as easy as descending a flight of stairs or turning a corner. Guided tours help travelers explore, and in a few places, where the excavations are parts of museums or churches, you can wander on your own.

This layered, partially exposed history lends Naples a haunting, mysterious quality. And there is a figurative underground as well as the literal one: the Camorra criminal network represents one use of the term, but the famed archaeological museum illustrates another sort of concealment. Its Secret Cabinet, long kept under lock and key and still off limits to unescorted children, is a collection of sex-themed ancient objects, many excavated from the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, that were long considered too obscene to be brought into public view.

One group showing the way underground is the Libera Associazione Escursionisti Sottosuolo, whose tour, in Italian with English handouts, leaves a few times a week from the well-known Gambrinus bar in the Piazza Trieste e Trento. But on our visit in March, my husband, Greg Miller, and I chose to explore with Napoli Sotterranea, which runs several 90-minute English-language tours a day from the city’s historic heart.

Our guide, 23-year-old Alex Fusaro, whose other job is as a drummer in an indie band, led our small group down a flight of stairs in an apartment building and into the first-century B.C. Here, he told us, were the remains of a Greco-Roman theater with a capacity of 6,000 where Nero is said to have sung through an earthquake. Some 30 families live above it now. We gazed from a large open space at ancient, intricately constructed arches in what had once been the backstage.

Wandering on, through the interconnected passageways below the bustling Neapolitan streets, we saw aqueducts that had been used for 23 centuries and then descended 121 steps deeper to the air-raid shelters. In 1941, almost 250 miles of tunnels and waterways under Naples were cleared of water and refuse, most wells were sealed, and stairways were built and electricity installed. The Neapolitans who waited in the shelters as bombs pounded overhead left markers of their tense days and weeks there: drawings on walls of bombs and planes, the word “aiuto” (help). We saw toy cars and beds, a sewing machine and a radio that were later found in the shelters. Then we gripped lighted candles and navigated a chilly long, low and narrow passageway where water once flowed, to reach Greek and Roman cisterns. The largest, our guide told us, was built by the Romans in the second century A.D. and used until the 19th century; it is high and boxy, carved from the yellow tufo.

Afterward, it was a welcome contrast to re-enter the 21st century at Scaturchio, on the Piazza San Domenico Maggiore, with an espresso and sfogliatelle. Crowds wandered nearby in the Via San Gregorio Armeno, jampacked with shops that make and sell the traditional Neapolitan nativity scenes, known as presepi.

Also not to be missed in this part of the city are the remarkable Greco-Roman ruins beneath the 18th-century cloister at San Lorenzo Maggiore. We descended a staircase and wandered entirely alone for 90 minutes in a buried world that was once at street level: the remains of a first-century A.D. Roman market, a barrel-vaulted shopping arcade and a road with remnants of ruins, including a domed oven of an ancient bakery and a communal laundry with tubs and drains.

The Windy City is one of America’s sports meccas: home to the Bears and the Bulls, the Sox and the Cubs, and, Chicagoans are only recently willing to admit, the Blackhawks. But can it become Surf City, U.S.A.?
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* Tell Charles Taylor We’re Surfing…

This week, Chicago Park District’s governing board empowered the city superintendent to lift a decades-old ban on the use of flotation devices like boogie boards on the city’s waterways. (The ordinance was established to prevent accidental drownings; government officials were chiefly concerned about liability, and the prospect that novice swimmers, imitating highly skilled surfers, might leap into Lake Michigan, especially in harsh winter conditions.) The move will effectively legalize surfing in the heart of the Midwest, and make Chicago an unlikely beachfront in the war to extend surfing’s influence across the country. (Read a story about how recession threatens the original Surf City, U.S.A.)

At first, the idea of surfers riding waves within view of Chicago’s iconic skyline may seem bizarre. But this city has long had robust beaches: This spring, Chicago opened its newest beach, on the South Side; and a former resident of the South Side, the city’s favorite adopted son, Hawaiian-born President Barack Obama, is a surfer — although it’s hard to imagine him ever taking to the shores of Lake Michigan. The city’s beaches have more than a century’s worth of history. In the 1890s, a group of prominent Chicagoans, including doctors and businessmen, lobbied for the creation of public beaches along Lake Michigan, in part for working-class residents to have access to clean bathing water. In 1913, the beaches became the site of controversy when women’s rights activists used them to protest the legally mandated but voluminous “swimming costumes” — one woman stripping down to her bloomers to swim because it was impossible, she said, to swim in the required skirt. A judge ruled that her attire was not indecent. (Check out a story about the new sport of Stand-Up Paddle surfing.)

Surfing, for its part, is not an alien sport to Chicagoans. At Ryan Gerard’s Third Coast Surf Shop, in New Buffalo, Mich., many of his growing base of customers make the 90-minute drive from Chicago to purchase their gear. “There’s no reason we shouldn’t be allowed to surf,” Gerard says. “We see ourselves as an asset to local communities.” But, given the risk of being ticketed and fined $500, Chicago surfers had typically gone elsewhere in the Great Lakes, the world’s largest body of fresh water. Still, aficionados continued to sneak into the water and, after one ticket too many, a group of surfers last December sent Chicago’s Park District a proposal asking that surfing be allowed at four of the city’s beaches during the traditional beach season, Memorial Day to Labor Day, as well as year-round at a fifth beach. Officials are still sorting through various details of regulating surfing, like whether there will be an age requirement for surfing, and what, exactly, signs along beaches will say (For example, “Surf at Your Own Risk”?).

Midwestern surfers prefer Labor Day through Memorial Day, particularly November onward, when the waves are especially choppy. The water, experts say, is warmer than the air’s temperature, and creates an “unstable boundary layer” near the water’s surface — hence more waves. Waves during a storm may reach 20 feet, and appear roughly every six to eight seconds. How do they compare to the surf in Hawaii and California? Pacific waves tend to be stronger, and longer, than those in the Midwest because they gain momentum having crossed thousands of miles from Asia. They may be twice as tall, and appear every 10 to 12 seconds during a storm.

Those differences, however, don’t matter much to Midwestern surfers. Last December, Vince Deur, co-chair of the Surfrider Foundation’s chapter here, took a group of friends to the southern shore of Lake Michigan. The air temperature was about 25 degrees. A winter storm covered much of the lake, sending fierce winds from the north to create waves nearly two feet above Deur’s head. “The waves,” he recalls, “had some nice shape and power. But look,” he continues, “we know that in the world of great surfing, as far as quality goes, we’re at the bottom. We’re in it for the fun.” Anticipating the arrival of surfing on Lake Michigan, Deur said Wednesday, “We understand and respect the city’s small step approach to opening these beaches. And we consider this a victory.”

Casio has unveiled its first ultra-compact superzoom in the shape of Exilim EX-H10. Its 10X optical zoom starts at an extremely wide 24mm equivalent. Its battery can shoot an impressive 1000 images on a single charge (using standard CIPA tests). The 12.1MP camera also has a 3.0″ LCD and features such as Auto Best Shot and Make-up Shot.

A group, including a number of DJs, have been accused of making hundreds of thousands of pounds by buying their own music online with stolen credit cards.

It’s alleged the gang put their own music on Apple iTunes and Amazon and spent about £459,000 buying it back - claiming nearly £200,000 in royalties.

Nine people were arrested in London and the Midlands after a joint operation with a new E-crime unit and the FBI.

It’s thought the music was sold between September 2008 and January 2009.

The gang are alleged to have used 1,500 stolen credit cards.

Detective Chief Inspector Terry Wilson, from the Met’s Police Central E-Crime Unit (PCeU) said: “This has been a complex investigation to establish what we believe to be an international conspiracy to defraud Apple and Amazon.

“We are now making it more risky for criminals who seek to exploit the internet and commit e-crime across national borders.”

Police raided addresses in London, Birmingham, Kent and Wolverhampton following the investigation, which started in February.

The nine people arrested are being held on suspicion of conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering.

What’s the deal with AT&T? How long have they had to prep for this stuff? It’s not like its new or fancy technology. It’s pretty tough to justify this lag in support for iPhone 3.0 features. Lets get with the program, AT&T.

As expected, the new Apple iPhone 3GS is out. We were right: The photos of the new iPhone were real. Here you have a comprehensive guide to the iPhone 3GS’ new features:

Speed
The “S” stands for “SPEED!” And according to Apple, it is faster launching applications or rendering Web pages.

• The iPhone 3GS has a new processor built-in. Apple claims that it is up to two times faster than the previous generation: Launching messages is 2.1 faster, load the NY Times in Safari: 2.9 times faster. It also consumes less, which has an impact on the improved battery life.

Camera
This is one of the strong points of the iPhone 3GS, according to Apple. They increased the resolution to 3 megapixels, which—judging from the shots they showed-seems much better quality under all conditions.

• 3 Megapixels sensor.
• New camera, with auto focus, auto exposure, and auto white balance.
• You can also tap to focus, changing white balance in the process. That is really neat, if you ask me.
• Special macro and low light modes.
• The camera also supports photo and video geotagging.
• Any application can access all the camera functions now.

• It supports video, 30 frames per second VGA with auto focus, auto white balance, and auto exposure.
• You can trim the video shot just using your finger, then share it via MMS, email, MobileMe and YouTube.

Connectivity
The other part of the “S” is the support for the faster 7.2 Mbps 3G standard, which in theory will deliver data faster to your iPhone.

• Three band UMTS/HSDPA.
• Four band GSM/EDGE.
• Wi-Fi 802.11b/g.
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR

Graphics
• The new iPhone 3GS includes new 3D graphics support in hardware. This means faster and more complicated 3D games.
• Same 3.5-inch widescreen multitouch display, but this time it has a fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating. I wonder if it will withstand a full frontal Shake Shack burger attack.

Design

• Same design as before, including the glossy finish of the back (so much for all the rumors about the matte back.)
• Same size as the old iPhone 3G: 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.48 inches.
• The weight increases a bit: One ounce to 4.8 ounces (135 grams vs 133 grams).
• Greener materials: Arsenic-free glass, BDF-free, Mercury-free LCD.

New special features
• It has a magnetometer, which works with a Compass application, third parties, and it is integrated into the new Google maps app, showing your orientation with a small semitransparent cone.
• Voice control. You can now talk with your iPhone, Enterprise-style. You can instruct it to play similar songs to the one you are playing, or call people.
• Nike + support built in.
• Supports accessibility features, like zooming on text, inverting video, and voice over when you touch whatever text is on screen.

Battery life
• One of the more important new features is the increased battery life.
• According to Apple, you will get up to 12 hours of talk time on 2G and 5 on 3G, with a up to 300 hour standby time.
• On 3G, it will deliver 5 hours of internet use.
• On Wi-Fi, Internet goes up to 9 hours.
• Video playback is 10 hours vs 30 hours for audio.

Price and availability
• $199 for 16GB version.
• $299 for 32GB version.
• Available on June 19th.

If you are “a valued AT&T customer,” AT&T offers an “early iPhone upgrade with a new 2-yr commitment and an $18 upgrade fee.” The price? $399.00 for the 16GB iPhone 3G S and $499.00 for the 32GB iPhone 3G S. It gets worse: For non-qualified customers, including existing AT&T customers who want to upgrade from another phone or replace an iPhone 3G, the price with a new two-year agreement is $499 (8GB), $599 (16GB), or $699 (32GB).

So you bought your heavily subsidised iPhone 3G with a two-year contract and now you are upset because AT&T wants to charge you full price for the new iPhone 3GS, right? Well, stop whining. You have no arguments.

I have the iPhone 3G—by the way, I paid an extra $500 deposit on top of the price tag because I didn’t have US credit history back then—and I don’t qualify for a subsidised upgrade. I have to finish my contract first, then renew to qualify for the subsidy. If I was in Spain or anywhere else in the world, it will be the same.

But I am not whining. Not because I am a fanboy—I hate AT&T with a passion—but because there are no logical arguments to support the whining.

Sure, it sucks to be me and pay almost-full price for the iPhone 3GS, but that’s how life is. You don’t get a reduced price on your new notebook just because you bought the old model a year ago. You don’t get reduced price on cars, or anything else.

The fact is that the $199/$299 price tag for the iPhone is the result of AT&T’s—or any other carrier, since the situation is the same all around the world—subsidy. Without subsidy—and tying you to a new two year contract—the iPhone is not different from something like the Nokia N97, which is $700 unlocked. Or the contract-free, unsubsidized iPhone 3G itself: The iPhone 3G costs $770 and $877 unlocked for the 8 and 16GB versions.

I hate to defend AT&T or any other carrier. I hate their guts. All of them. Their monthly fees are highway robbery, yes. Their roaming charges are unjustified and just outrageous. And while you—and I—may think that you are entitled to a discount because of those fees, that doesn’t make much sense. I’m afraid that, this time, they are right. And on top of that, your carrier is actually giving you a discount already. Tiny, but compared to the full price of the unsubsidized iPhone, it’s there.

You better get used to this too. These smart phones are really computers. And as applications get more and more complex—especially games—you will want to have the latest and fastest, whether is iPhone, Android, Palm, Windows Mobile, or Blackberry. Just like you upgrade your notebook or desktop computer or video game console.

With all of those brands, the situation will be exactly the same. Without a subsidy, you will keep paying full price for these tiny and wonderful machines. All of them. And that price will stay at around $600 for a long time to come. It happened before, and it’s not going to change.

In other words: Drive through, people. Nothing to see here. If you are not happy, get a Pre. And when Pre 2 appears, jump back to the iPhone. If you must have something new because your ADD has got you tired of last year technology, then get Android, Pre, or whatever. But don’t expect any company to give you discounted hardware when the next generation of Smartypantsphone X comes.

Or better yet: Don’t buy a new phone. Who cares about “new.” Does your iPhone 3G work now? Yes? Then get the free iPhone OS 3.0 and enjoy the speed boost from optimization and the rest of the apps. In this economy, you will do yourself a favor. This is exactly what I am doing.

In the meantime, do the rest of the world a favor and stop whining about what you are entitled to. We don’t live in your pretty me me me ME world.