Beauty Pageant In Kentucky

Thanks to modern technology, "Beowulf's" bare-chested hot bods are buffed to the max without the benefit of steroids. The cast of "300" had to endure weeks of working out to get in shape for their film, but for Zemeckis, it was as easy as dressing his middle-aged stars - Ray Winstone, John Malkovich and Anthony Hopkins - in skin-tight body stockings. Although tracing the sinewy figure of Angelina Jolie into virtual beauty wasn't as difficult.

"We were able to create our own beefcake from scratch," explains screenwriter Roger Avary ("Pulp Fiction"), who co-scripted "Beowulf" with fantasy author Neil Gaiman from the Olde English epic poem that dates back to at least the 8th century. As with 2004's "The Polar Express," Zemeckis' previous motion-capture effort, his actors wore suits festooned with dozens of sensors that allowed computers to track their moves and map them onto the film's CGI characters.

Everyday Biographies Offer Harrods' Customers A Christmas Gift Of Immortality

Everyday Biographies have partnered with Harrods to offer customers a unique gift product this Christmas - professionally written Autobiographies or Childhood Memories books that will be treasured by families for generations to come.

The Everyday Biographies service makes it simple to give someone a gift of having their life story or childhood memories professionally written and bound. The beauty of the service is that the person receiving the gift doesn't have to write a word. They simply share their memories over a series of telephone conversations.

Southern Discomfort

Regional stereotyping is a hallmark of crude humor the world over. Berliners bust on Bavarians; Venetians needle Neapolitans. Almost any perceived difference is fair game: accent, food, fashion and especially brainpower. In the United States, the South�s roguish past makes it an especially juicy target for jokes. Of course, troubled history has forged literary genius. Southern writers such as Tennessee Williams, Eudora Welty and Langston Hughes created tales and characters that drew on their roots without disparaging them. In The Miss Firecracker Contest (1984), playwright Beth Henley does just the opposite. The Mississippi native stuffs condescending clich�s into her script like a sausage maker gone mad. How many �po� white trash� elements can she ram into her characters� Southern Gothic backstories? Far too many is the unfortunate answer.

New in the Neighborhood

3701 E.P. True Parkway, West Des Moines
This video store is closing. The Movie Gallery corporation announced in September that it would be closing 520 of its stores that were underperforming or unprofitable. That includes Hollywood Video stores, which it also owns. A spokeswoman for the company said individual stores are being closed as soon as their inventory is liquidated, which is expected to be soon.
Other area stores under liquidation include the Movie Gallery at 4500 E. University Ave. in Pleasant Hill and the Hollywood Video at 2501 E. Euclid Ave. in Des Moines.
After the closings, the company will still have about 4,000 stores nationwide.

Hollywood Video

2501 E. Euclid Ave., Des Moines
This video store is closing and its inventory is being liquidated.

Tattle | Elvis heads list of top-earning dead celebrities

SINCE IT CAN write about rich live people only 51 weeks a year, Forbes this week writes about rich dead people.

Elvis Presley, who died 30 years ago, made an estimated $49 million in the past 12 months, and has reclaimed the No. 1 spot on Forbes.com's list of Top-Earning Dead Celebrities.

He last topped the list in 2005.

The rest of the Halloween Lucky Top 13:

2. John Lennon, $44 million

3. "Peanuts" creator Charles M. Schulz, $35 million

4. George Harrison, $22 million

5. Albert Einstein, $18 million

Einstein? What the heck did he do last year?

6. Andy Warhol, $15 million

7. Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss), $13 million

8. Tupac Shakur, $9 million

9. Marilyn Monroe, $7 million

10. Steve McQueen, $6 million

11.